Frail
by reading
Summary: Dean and Sam return to visit Jo and her family.
1. Chapter 1

_Frail_

_This is a sequel of sorts to Strangers and Angels, although I don't think you need to have read that one to understand this. It might help with knowing some of the characters that aren't Dean or Sam or, eventually, John._

_I've dropped everyone back into the regular Supernatural timeline. Kind of. So, the finale has happened and it's several months later. The show timeline and the story timeline aren't really going to match up, though. _

_xxxx_

"_For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm." Ephesians 6:12-13_

_xxxx_

_He could hear screams and taste the acrid smell of smoke in the back of his throat as he ran up the stairs. He knew where to go though he'd never been in that part of the apartment before, sprinting down the long hall, cries echoing around him, bouncing off the walls, confusing him, driving him forward. _

_The door was closed, but he could see the glow seeping from under it, undulating, spilling into the hall, dying the hard wood floors a deep crimson. He didn't pause, hitting the door with his shoulder, heard the lintel crack, the voices of the children suddenly deafening as he staggered into the room._

_They were on the bed, three boys, staring at the ceiling, mouths almost perfect "O"s in their terror. His own eyes went upward, fixing on the woman pinned there, flames engulfing her, lips moving silently, trying to tell him something._

_Jo._

xxxx

Dean bolted up right in bed, a scream swallowed to a muffled croak as reality returned with a jolt.

Sam stirred in the next bed, and Dean sat panting, head and heart pounding as he reached out blindly for the lamp between them.

"Dean?" Sam's voice was hoarse, concern and annoyance making themselves known in equal parts as the light flipped on.

But Dean was reaching for his cell phone, hands fumbling with the buttons as he tried to find the number, shaking from adrenaline and fear.

"Dean, what's going on?" Sam rolled onto his side, propping himself up on one elbow, hair standing at all angles as he squinted at his brother.

He punched the button to connect.

"Dean?"

Ringing.

Silence from Sam, brows drawn together as he waited.

"Hello?" A sleepy female voice.

"Jo?"

Sam's eyebrows went up.

"Dean?" He could hear the rustling of sheets as she sat up in bed. "Honey, what's wrong?" Concern started into her voice. "Are you OK? Is it Sam?"

Dean was suddenly flustered, embarrassment taking hold, pushing aside the lingering urgency from his dream. He shouldn't have called without having talked to Sam first. And it was probably nothing. A nightmare. He was overreacting. He knew he was overreacting, but…

"No, no, we're fine." His eyes strayed to the clock. _3:27. Shit._ "I'm sorry. I didn't realize it was this late."

There was a pause. "You didn't realize it was 3:30 in the morning?" She sounded doubtful and still worried. "Dean, are you sure everything's OK?"

"Yeah, everything's fine, we…" he trailed off, not sure how to get out of this. "We were just out late and, you know, didn't really…" He was floundering, eyes straying to Sam, who was staring at him brows drawn into a frown.

"We thought we might come visit," he blurted.

It was nothing; it had to be nothing. Sam said he'd dreamed about Jessica for days.

Sam was now sitting up in bed, leaning toward him.

"Well, that would be wonderful." Dean could hear the confusion in Jo's voice.

"Are you sure? We don't want to …"

Jo cut him off.

"Don't be ridiculous! I'm just slow because I'm only half awake. You and Sam are always welcome. You know that."

Dean drew in a deep breath. "Thanks." Awkward pause. "We'll see you tomorrow, then."

"We'll look forward to it," Jo said, the warmth and pleasure in her voice washing over him. "The boys will be so excited."

Dean closed his eyes. "Yeah, we are, too. See you soon."

"See you soon."

The call was disconnected and Dean got up, heading to the bathroom, avoiding Sam's worried stare. Sam waited while Dean ran the water, splashing his face and his head, still struggling to get himself under control.

"Do you want to tell me what's going on?" Sam asked.

Dean came back into the room and sat on the bed across from his brother. Their knees touched across the space between them, and for once, Dean didn't move away. Even the bony contact of Sam's knees seemed to help.

"I had a dream," Dean said to the floor.

Nothing from Sam. Dean's eyes came up from studying his brother's long toes on the carpet. He could see Sam trying to process this. There was a brief expression of confusion and then a dawning comprehension. Dean watched Sam's breath quicken, shock forcing the air out of his younger brother's lungs as he realized what Dean was saying.

"What kind of dream?"

Sam's voice was like sandpaper, the question scraping out of his throat. Asking. Even though he knew.

"Jo." Dean's throat closed up. "On the ceiling. Fire."

Sam's face had turned white in the lamplight.

"Like Jess." Dean said it thickly, remembering.

The girl on the ceiling, a red slash across her midriff, flames exploding around her. Sam on the bed, paralyzed as his nightmare came to life above him, Dean faltering as he burst into the room, his terror for his brother momentarily forgotten in light of the horror overhead.

Dean stood abruptly, moving around the room, picking up clothes and weapons, thrusting things into bags, packing his stuff and Sam's haphazardly, unmindful of what was going where.

He went into the bathroom, shoving razors, toothbrushes, and toothpaste into a battered Dopp kit, waiting for Sam to start—questioning, demanding.

But there was only a hanging silence from the other room.

Dean reached into the shower, pulled out shampoo and soap, stuck them in the other kit, did a quick once over to make sure he had everything before he went back into the bedroom.

Still nothing from his brother.

"Maybe it's just a nightmare, Sammy, but …" Dean broke off. It felt bizarrely presumptuous to consider that he could be having a premonition, and he wanted to deny it. But how could he risk it? Knowing what had happened before.

He tossed the toiletry stuff into one of the duffels and turned to Sam, almost willing his brother to challenge him.

But Sam, frozen on the bed, was looking to Dean.

"What do we do?" Sam's tight whisper gave voice to Dean's own rising panic.

_I don't know._

"Stop it," said Dean grimly.

"How?"

_I don't know, _he wanted to scream.

"We'll figure something out."

xxxx

For once Sam didn't give Dean any trouble about his speed.

They'd gotten almost 20 miles down the road when Sam's brain kicked back into gear.

"Do you really think it was a vision?"

The question came after complete silence from Sam for the last 30 minutes.

Dean glanced quickly at Sam, who was staring at him intently.

"I don't know, Sammy."

Sam's eyes went back to the road.

"It might just have been a dream."

"I know that." Silence stretched between them again. "Do you want to risk it?"

Sam shook his head. "We can't."

"I know."

Quiet.

Dean risked another glance at his brother, and he could almost see the wheels turning in Sam's head as the younger man tried to figure out what their next step should be. Dean felt some of the tension in his neck ease, relieved that Sam was back with him.

"Should we tell Jo and Luke the truth?"

"Maybe."

Sam raised an eyebrow at him.

"I don't know, Sam." He left one hand on the wheel while he rubbed the other over his eyes. God, he was tired. "They know us too well. I don't think we can bullshit them about this." He caught Sam's eyes. "Jo'll see right through any story we try to tell." He snorted softly. "Luke will, too, for that matter."

Sam bit his lip, tugging at his ear while he thought. "Yeah." He sighed. "How do you think they'll take it?" he asked quietly.

Dean shook his head, unhappy. "I don't know."

xxxx

They reached the motel close to noon, pulling around back to the house where the family had moved after Jo and Luke had married. The apartment attached to the motel had been a tight fit for a long time, but the old ranch house that sat back from the commercial property had been in no shape for living. Sam and Dean had spent four days before the wedding helping Luke and the boys make it habitable before they all moved in. It was still a work in progress.

The screen door flew open as the Impala slowed to a stop.

"Dean!" Tommy flew across the porch and down the steps.

Dean only had time to straighten getting out of the car before he was hit solidly in the chest by the hurtling projectile. He took a step back, wrapping his arms around the boy, picking him up and swinging him around, relief making him feel almost giddy, the sound of delighted laughter making his heart constrict painfully in an odd mixture of elation and dread.

"Dude." He set Tommy back on solid ground. "You're going to kill me next time you do that." He reached out and put a hand on the boy's head. "How tall are you anyway?"

The rest of the family had not been far behind its youngest member, and Sam was being hugged and punched as Dean and Tommy joined them. Sam's and Dean's eyes met. Dean could see the uncertainty there and knew that it was mirrored in his own.

"Dean." Jo stepped forward.

"Hey," he said softly as he leaned down to give her a hug.

"We're so glad you're here."

He smiled, and Jo frowned slightly as she looked into his eyes. _Crap._

"Aunt Jo's been using your room for her sewing, but we cleared all that stuff off the beds, so you can sleep there," Tommy offered from his perch on Sam's back.

"If you give me your keys, I'll get your bags." Michael held his palm out to Dean.

Dean turned and looked at him narrowly.

"What?" Michael's eyes were wide, face radiating astonished innocence.

Dean jangled his keys in his hand.

"Just the bags."

"Just the bags," the boy said.

Dean held the keys out. Michael reached for them, and Dean snatched them back.

"You're not driving my car."

"Jeez!" But Michael was grinning, caught.

"Amateur," Dean scoffed. He tossed the keys to Sam, who caught them in one hand. Jostling Tommy on his back, Sam got a firmer grip on his passenger as he went to the car, bouncing as he walked. Awkwardly, he unlocked the trunk, lifting the lid. He settled Tommy more comfortably before he turned back to Michael. Tommy's foot was swinging rhythmically as he peered over Sam's shoulder at his brother.

"There," Sam said. "Now you can get our bags." He lobbed the keys back to Dean over Michael's head. "Thanks," he said brightly.

Jake was snickering at his brother, and Dean hooked an elbow around younger boy's neck, pulling him close, scrubbing knuckles over the top of the kid's head. "You think that's funny?"

"Yes," Jake gasped, fighting back, surprising Dean with his strength.

"Oh, yeah?" Dean tightened his grip, and Jake's hands scrabbled for a hold. Michael, dropping the bags, came to the aid of his brother, and Sam swung Tommy down, backing his own. Tommy danced indecisively around the edges briefly before finally hurling himself into the melee without actually choosing a side.

Jo side-stepped the struggle easily and started up the stairs of the porch as the whole writhing mass of flailing arms and legs toppled over into a pile in the dust.

"When y'all are finished, lunch will be ready."

xxxx

Lunch had been casual—sandwiches and chips and Coke—laid out on the table for the family to grab as they had time. Jo and the boys stayed busy with the motel in the afternoon while Sam and Dean got settled and then pitched in to help around the diner. They weren't really needed, but it gave them both an excuse to sit at the counter and catch up with the people they'd gotten to know over the time they spent with Jo and her family. Marge brought them piece after piece of pie and kept their coffee mugs filled as they worked the register and bussed the occasional table. Even in the midst of the anxiety that lingered just under the surface, Dean could feel the increasingly familiar sense of "home" begin to settle in.

Luke arrived after they'd already started dinner, a domestic dispute in town having kept him busy all that afternoon and into the evening. He'd greeted Sam and Dean warmly, if distractedly, taken his seat and plowed single-mindedly through his meal.

Dean could feel the tension radiating off Luke, and swallowed his own rising discomfort as he thought about the conversation he and Sam were going to have to have with Jo and Luke. The younger boys chattered at Dean and Sam, filling them in on what had been going on. Over the last year or so, they'd all kept in touch with email and phone calls. The last time they'd visited, Michael had set Dean up with an email account that he remembered to check sporadically.

"So, we decided that we should break up and just be friends," Michael was saying.

"Yeah?" Sam asked. He took another bite of casserole. "How's that going?"

Michael shrugged. "Pretty good, I guess. I mean, it's hard, but with her at Tech and me at A&M next year…. It just seemed like we should be open to something new. I mean, it's college, right?"

Now, Michael's eyes shifted to Jo. "Besides, her mom had started talking about the wedding, and that freaked us both out a little."

Dean choked on the mouthful of milk he'd just swallowed.

Jo snorted. "Yeah. Never mind the kids. It was freaking _me_ out." She shook her head as she met Dean's and Sam's astonished eyes. "I'm just glad that Michael and Emily had enough sense between the two of them not to let Muriel rush them into marriage right out of high school." She smiled across the table at her oldest nephew. "I'm really proud of both of them. It was a difficult, difficult decision, and they've been incredibly mature about it."

Michael's face flushed at the praise, and he lifted one shoulder in a shrug, before turning the conversation to a topic that didn't involve him.

"So," he said with a grin. "Jake's got a girl."

Now it was Jacob's turn to blush.

"Shut up!"

"Don't say 'shut up,' Jacob. And stop teasing him, Michael."

Dean let Michael's comment hang for a little while, taking another bite of his dinner. Then he asked, nonchalantly, "So, is she cute?"

"Yeah," Jake muttered to his green beans.

"Have you kissed her yet?"

The boy's ears flamed.

"Dean!" Jo exclaimed. "Leave him alone! All y'all mind your own business." Jo got up from the table, running a hand over Jake's head as she moved to the sink.

Still not raising his head, Jacob's eyes tracked his aunt, and then slid over to Dean, looking at him through his eyelashes. He grinned. "Yeah," he said softly.

Even Luke roused enough from his preoccupation to laugh at Jake's revelation. Jo set down the mugs she'd taken out of the cabinet on the way back to the table, and grabbed a handful of the boy's hair, shaking him gently. Her eyes met Luke's. Jake looked both enormously pleased with himself and a little nervous.

"We'll talk later, young man," Luke intoned, pointing a fork at him.

Jo arched an eyebrow at Dean. "Should we ask you about your love life?"

Dean grinned at her. "Probably not."

"I thought as much." She'd brought coffee with her as well, and she walked around the table filling cups. She sat down with her own, and looked at Sam.

"How about you, sweetie?"

Sam smiled. "Nothing really."

Jo shook her head. "Y'all need to stick around here a little longer. There are some really sweet…"

"Anyway!" Both Sam and Dean raised their voices over Jo's. The boys at the table laughed and started to rise, clearing plates and silverware.

"One day," she promised, narrowing her eyes at them.

"Yeah, yeah."

As the boys cleared the table, the adults sat and drank their coffee, chatting about things other than girls, waiting for the younger members of the family to finish and head for the television in the other room. Eventually, Jake and Tommy wandered off, squabbling over whether to watch something on television or find a movie.

Michael, feeling very adult at 18, rejoined the group at the kitchen table.

Jo cleared her throat. "Honey, why don't you go see what your brothers are up to?"

Michael looked around the table. "Why? What's going on?"

"Nothing," Luke said. "Go make sure they haven't decided to watch something they shouldn't."

Scowling, Michael pushed back from the table. "Fine," he said. "But I'm not a little kid any more."

Closing her eyes against the drama, Jo said, "Of course you're not, baby." Michael's face darkened. "I mean, sweetie." She bit back a sigh of impatience. "We just want to talk to Sam and Dean alone for awhile, OK?"

"Fine." He stalked out of the room.

"What was that?" Dean asked.

"With college next year, he's very aware of how 'grown up' he is these days."

"Ah." Dean's eyes cut to Sam and back to Jo significantly. She bit back a laugh as Sam reached for a cookie, oblivious.

They waited until they could hear the voices of all three boys in the back room. Luke hitched his chair around so that he had a clear view down the hall to check for eavesdroppers.

"So, what's going on, you two?" he asked.

Dean and Sam exchanged looks. Dean cleared his throat.

"Well." Dean scratched the back of his neck, looking at Sam again.

"Uh," Sam tried to start.

Jo and Luke exchanged their own glances.

"This is going to sound strange," Dean finally said. An unfamiliar nervousness constricted his chest, making it difficult to breathe normally.

"OK."

"Last night I had a dream. A nightmare. About Jo." Dean kept his eyes on the table in front of him, afraid of what he might see if he looked at Luke or Jo. "The thing is. Sam had the same dream. The week before his girlfriend died."

Silence.

"What was the dream?" Jo asked it cautiously, eyes straying to Luke uncertainly.

Dean cleared his throat. His eyes went swiftly from Luke to Jo to Sam.

"It was night, and I was in the kitchen of the old apartment. I could hear the boys screaming, and I ran upstairs. There was fire under the door at the end of the hall, and when I opened the door, the kids were all on the bed." Dean could feel his heart starting to respond to the residual fear from the night before, speeding up, his breath keeping time even as he tried to steady himself. "They were… staring up at the ceiling, and… when I looked, Jo was on the ceiling. There was blood… and there was fire. She was trying to tell me something, but I couldn't…"

Dean jumped at a touch on his hand. Jo had put her hand over his, warm fingers wrapping gently around his cold ones. She smiled at him.

"It's OK."

He shook his head, trying to clear it of the haunting images.

"It was just a dream, Dean," Luke said, confused. He was concerned, Dean could tell, but really more about the crazy man at his table than about his wife.

"Maybe." Sam said it softly, bringing all the eyes in the kitchen around to him. "But it might not be." Sam was a little gray, Dean's recitation of his dream stirring up memories of Jess. And his own failure.

"I had the same dream before Jess died," he whispered. "And that's how she died."

"I was on the bed, and when I opened my eyes, she was there, pinned to the ceiling, bleeding. And then she disappeared in an explosion of fire. Dean pulled me out. Otherwise…"

Luke and Jo were looking at him, mouths slightly open, not sure how to respond. Their eyes moved to Dean and then back to Sam.

"I've had other dreams, visions that have come true." Sam looked over at Dean. "We couldn't risk…" He stopped.

Luke looked at his wife and then again at the two young men sitting at his table. The anxiety was clear on their faces. Anxiety, he realized, not just about Jo, but also about his own reaction, and Jo's, to this story.

Luke drew in a deep breath, forcing himself not to overreact.

"So, you're afraid that Dean may have had one of these dreams that come true. Like what Sam has had." Luke hesitated. "A vision," he said uncomfortably.

Dean nodded stiffly.

"Have you had a dream like this before? One that's come true?" he asked slowly.

"No."

Luke considered.

"How similar was your dream, Sam, to what actually happened to Jess?" Luke offered the question carefully. "Location? Details? Was it exactly the same?"

Sam took a moment before he answered. "Exactly." He cleared his throat. "Everything was exactly the same."

"How about your other dreams or visions? Exactly the same?"

"Yes," Sam said. As far as they knew, he believed they were the same. His eyes cut to Dean and Dean knew what his brother was remembering. "Except where we've been able to stop it." _Dean, a bullet hole in his forehead, blood on the wall._ Except not.

Luke's eyes now went to Dean, who was listening intently to the exchange.

"There's nothing in the old apartment any more. No beds, no other furniture. Dean, if Sam's visions are precise, even in the details, it seems to me that this dream of yours must only have been a dream. There wouldn't be a bed for the boys to be on; there'd be no reason for them or Jo to be there at all."

Dean nodded haltingly, eyes turning to Sam, who was also clearly thinking through what Luke had said.

"Maybe," conceded Sam, looking at Dean.

Dean had only come to accept Sam's budding psychic abilities reluctantly, and so to argue for the possibility of his own made him incredibly uncomfortable.

"You're probably right," he said quietly, "but…" Dean could feel the heat start to rise in his face. "But. What if…?"

"I understand what you're saying, Dean," Luke said. "If your… abilities, I guess, manifest themselves differently from Sam's…"

"I'm not saying that I _have_ any… abilities. I just…"

"No. I know." Luke met Dean's eyes squarely. "We shouldn't disregard anything. And we won't."

There was a long moment of silence.

Dean cleared his throat and laughed a little unsteadily as he tried to ease his fingers out of Jo's grasp. The slight, self-mocking grin he sent her was an attempt to lighten the tension in the room, to give her, he thought, the opportunity to put some distance between herself and the crazy people she'd let into her life and the life of her family.

Jo's grip tightened on his hand gently, not letting him go.

"The way Jess died…" she started. "Did you ever find out how… that happened? What could have done that to her?" She asked it hesitantly, clearly sure that the answer would be nothing she wanted to know.

"It was a demon," Sam answered softly. They'd started this, they might as well finish it. "The same demon that killed our mother."

Jo blinked rapidly, shock and understanding plain on her face. "The fire?" she asked Dean. He nodded and she looked quickly at Luke, trying to gauge his reaction.

Luke's eyes had hardened at this revelation.

"A demon," he said, flatly.

Dean tensed at the tone of Luke's voice.

"Yes."

Sam said it steadily, but Dean could hear Sam's recognition of the tone, as well.

Dean braced himself and saw Luke turn his head from Sam to look at his wife. Jo's hand was icy as it held Dean's, and he expected at any moment to have it withdrawn, forever.

"So, is it the demon that's got me in the dream?" she asked, her voice uncertain. "Why? Why would it want me?"

Luke moved sharply in his chair, leaning forward, not liking the direction the conversation was taking.

Dean sat up, suddenly rigid. He really hadn't thought about the bigger picture implications of his dream.

_If it was a vision, why? What would the demon want with Jo?_

_Stupid,_ he thought to himself. He and Sam had reacted purely on emotion. _Think._

"We don't… We haven't…" Sam stuttered to a halt. "I don't know." His brow furrowed as he thought about it. His eyes turned to his brother.

"It killed Mom and Jess because it said they got in the way." Sam said it to Dean. "If it thinks Jo is in the way, why am _I_ not having visions? I did before. With Jess. With Max. In Salvation."

Luke's eyebrows almost disappeared into his hairline. "'_It said'?_" he asked incredulously. "You've _talked _to it?"

Dean's eyes flicked to Luke and then back to Sam.

"I don't know."

Sam's eyes darkened. "It was pretty pissed at you," he said softly. "Maybe its focus has changed?"

"Maybe." Dean thought about this. "But that doesn't explain why I would suddenly have the shining." He looked doubtfully at Sam. "Unless it's what's sending the visions?"

"I don't think so," Sam said, finally.

Dean agreed.

"Yeah. Me either."

"When did you talk to it?" Jo asked into the silence that descended. "When did it get pissed at you?" Worry made her sharp.

Dean ran a hand over his face, unconsciously rubbing at his chest with the other where the scars had healed.

"Last spring." He met Jo's eyes. "Right before the accident."

"The internal injuries," Luke said suddenly.

Dean looked at Luke in surprise at the seeming non sequitor.

"There were things about your injuries that the doctors couldn't explain. Damage they said they'd never seen before." Luke's voice was rough when he asked, "Signs of this demon's displeasure?"

Dean nodded, eyes dropping at the concern he saw in Luke's face.

"I figured there were things you weren't telling us then," Jo said, "but it didn't seem like the time…"

"We're sorry," Sam said, haltingly. "There was Dad, and we couldn't…" He broke of helplessly, looking to Dean. "We didn't know how you'd react, and we…"

Jo reached out to Sam across the table, one hand still holding Dean's, the other grasping Sam's. "It's OK, sweetie," she said kindly. She was pale, but composed.

She looked at her husband and then back to Dean.

"What do we do?" she asked.

xxxx


	2. Chapter 2

_Frail, part II_

_xxxx_

"_Luke and I are getting married and we'd like y'all to come."_

_Dean and Jo had been catching up for about ten minutes when she dropped the bomb._

"_I'm sorry. What?"_

_Jo laughed._

"_We're getting married, and you and Sam are invited."_

"_Married?" Dean was incredulous. "Were you even dating?"_

_Jo laughed again—a rumbling gurgle of a sound, rich and happy._

_Dean shook his head and grinned across the room at Sam, who was watching curiously._

"_Hell yeah, we'll come. When?"_

"_Three weeks from Saturday."_

_Now Dean raised an eyebrow._

"_So is Michael going to be holding the shotgun or should I?"_

_Around a chuckle she couldn't help, Jo made a disapproving sound low in her throat._

"_Dean Winchester," she said reprovingly. "What kind of girl do you think I am?"_

_He laughed. "Only the best of good girls," he said hastily._

"_You got that right," she approved. _

_There was a pause. _

"_Why do you think we're getting this done as soon as possible?" she asked impishly._

_Incredibly, Dean felt his face get warm. He held up a hand she couldn't see._

"_Please stop."_

_Her laughter rang out across the distance._

"_You started it, buddy," she said smugly._

_xxxx_

_Luke called the next day._

"_So, I guess you heard."_

"_Yeah. Congratulations, man."_

"_Thanks."_

"_Just so we're clear; if you hurt her or the boys, Sam and I will kill you."_

"_Understood. You'll have to get in line, though. I think yours is the fifth death threat I've had."_

_Luke explained his plan to get the ranch house livable before the wedding, and Dean readily agreed to come a few days early. When they got there, Sam and Dean found that Luke and the boys had made a good start on the renovation even working around sheriffing duties and school responsibilities. But with the wedding only four days away, everything else was put to the side as the final rush to get the house ready went into overdrive._

_Sam and Dean had camped out in the old house, working almost round the clock with Luke and whichever of the neighbors came by to help. When they'd brought in their bedrolls, Tommy and Jake had taken them straight to a nice-sized room on the first floor._

"_This is going to be your room," Tommy said cheerfully._

"_Thanks, bud," Dean said, dropping their gear on the floor. "Home for the next week," he said ironically to Sam, who grinned in return, tossing a couple of bags into a corner._

"_No," said Tommy, as if they were both stupid. "Forever."_

"_What?" _

"_This is your room for whenever you come to visit us. Aunt Jo said."_

"_Yeah." Jake had flopped down on one of the sleeping bags and was rolling back and forth on it, threatening the integrity of its stuff sack. "It's like a spare room, too, but we ordered beds for y'all. I think Aunt Jo's gonna make curtains and stuff. All flowery and girly." _

_He grinned broadly, sliding off the sleeping bag and onto the floor. Jumping to his feet, he grabbed his younger brother by the collar and started dragging him out of the room._

"_Come on! See ya!"_

_Dean cut his eyes to Sam, who was watching him in turn._

"_Huh."_

_Sam cleared his throat._

"_Yeah."_

_And once again the Winchesters found themselves drawn inexorably into the family, accepted as if they'd always belonged to these people and this place._

_The wedding ceremony itself had been a true reflection of the couple it joined—simple and joyful. Standing before the man who had baptized them both, wed them both, and buried both their spouses, their children at their sides, Jo and Luke made their promises to God and each other._

_Dean didn't really have any basis for comparison as he'd never been to a wedding that he remembered, but he'd liked it, he guessed. He sat stiffly in the pew next to his brother, tugging surreptitiously at the tie Jo had adjusted for him just before he'd headed with the boys to the church._

"_You're going to strangle yourself with it cinched that tight."_

_Dean angled his chin up and away, trying to get comfortable with the noose around his neck. He looked at her sulkily._

"_I hate these damn things," he grumbled._

_Jo clucked her tongue at him as she tried to smooth out the cowlick that seemed to have sprung up out of nowhere on the side of Tommy's head._

"_You're not supposed to…" Tommy started only to trail off at the glare Dean sent his way._

"_I've tried to show him," Sam said, eyeing his brother critically as he finished with his own perfectly knotted tie. "But it's like he's got a mental block or something."_

_Almost of their own accord, Sam's long fingers reached for Dean's tie, itching to correct the mess, only to be slapped away._

"_Dude. Quit."_

"_Dean, look, if you…" Sam tried again, hand outstretched._

"_Sam, I swear to God…"_

"_Enough." _

_Jo stepped between them, and Sam backed away. _

"_Untie that," she ordered, facing Dean._

_Frowning, he loosened the knot._

"_Button your top button."_

_Dean opened his mouth to protest, but closed it on her look. He buttoned the button._

"_Turn up your collar."_

_Resigned now, Dean complied._

_Jo made quick work of the tie, knotting it snugly, but comfortably against his throat. She turned his collar down and straightened it slightly, smoothing her hand down the front of the tie._

"_Perfect," she said, smiling up at him._

_Dean looked down at the tie, his fingers coming up to hover next to his collar._

_Jo's hand slapped at his gently._

"_Don't fiddle with it." Dean dropped his hand. He looked over at Sam who was grinning at him._

"_Shut up."_

_But Jo had turned her attention to the younger of the Winchester brothers._

"_Sam, honey, do you even own a brush?" _

_Distractedly Jo picked up the comb she'd just used to wrestle Tommy's hair into submission. She eyed the mop on the top of Sam's head speculatively._

"_Um," said Sam nervously._

"_Sit." She turned on the faucet and stuck the comb under the tap._

_Sam moved reluctantly toward a chair._

"_Uh, Jo? I…" Sam sat slowly._

_He hadn't even gotten completely seated before she'd run the dripping comb over the top of his head. Sam jumped slightly when a trail of water ran down the side of his head into his ear. Wincing as the comb worked through a tangle, he stayed silent, submitting to Jo's ministrations and his brother's amused observation of his grooming. By the time Jo was satisfied with the state of his hair, Michael and Jacob had joined the audience, clearly aware that they were next in line for their aunt's inspection._

_The boys bore up pretty well under Jo's scrutiny, Jacob being instructed to finish tucking in his shirt and Michael submitting to a quick swipe of Jo's thumb at a last bit of shaving cream under his ear._

_She ran her eyes assessingly over the five of them one last time._

"_You all look so handsome," she said, suddenly teary._

_Startled by the abrupt shift in emotions, Dean and Sam exchanged almost panicked glances._

_But Jake was rolling his eyes._

"_Aunt Jo," he groaned._

"_What?" she said defensively, wiping at her eyes. "You do."_

_Michael stepped forward and kissed his aunt lightly on the cheek._

"_You look beautiful, too, Mama," he said._

_The tears started to flow in earnest at Michael's words, and she gave him a brief hug before she pushed him away._

"_Now look what you've done," she sniffed, smiling through the tears. "I'm going to have to go fix my face before I leave." She blew her nose._

"_Dean, could you go ahead and take the boys to the church? Y'all all know where you're supposed to be, right?" This was addressed to the five of them and all five nodded._

"_Good. Please make sure Tommy avoids the worst of the dirt between the car and the church?" _

_Michael and Jacob had turned to the door. Behind their backs she mouthed, "Them, too," at Sam and Dean, who nodded their understanding._

_Jo watched the boys leave and then her eyes met Dean's, a sudden blinding smile lighting her whole being._

"_I'm getting married," she whispered giddily before she twirled and rushed from the room._

_Watching now from his place at the front of the church, Dean's chest felt tight, an oddly painful recognition that the love he'd only ever felt for Sam and his father was expanding, extending beyond those limited boundaries to the five people standing in front of him. Unconsciously, Dean rolled his shoulders, trying to stretch out the tightness. He took a deep breath and felt the ache ease somewhat. Dean looked over at his brother, who was watching the ceremony with an expression of intense concentration. Dean shook his head, a lip twitching in amusement at Sam's focus. Turning his face toward the front of the church again, Dean stretched his arm out behind Sam's back, giving his brother's shoulder a brief squeeze before he moved his hand to rest along the top of the pew. Sam looked at him in question, but Dean ignored him, and Sam smiled at his brother's profile before he, too, returned his attention to the altar._

_At the reception Dean had been coerced onto the dance floor twice—once to dance with Jo and once with Sarah Jones. Sam had turned out to be a surprisingly good waltzer and picked up two-stepping with an ease that had thrilled the girls and young women who giggled and flirted with him relentlessly._

_After dancing with Sarah, Dean retreated to the cluster of old men talking crops and football along the fringes of the crowd, uncomfortably aware that his standard practices when it came to interacting with girls probably wouldn't go over too well in this setting. There were more people in this place than Dean was sure what to do with, and rather than make a mistake that might embarrass himself or the happy couple, he chose to stand to the side and watch._

_At times like these, Dean couldn't help but feel the isolation of his upbringing. They didn't do this when he was young—didn't socialize with large crowds—didn't go to weddings or participate in neighborhood picnics. He didn't remember ever seeing his father do what he saw Luke doing now, moving with ease from group to group, talking and laughing, shaking hands, picking up babies and just having a good time with friends and family._

_Scanning the crowd, Dean found Sam, and he watched his little brother like he'd watched Luke. It was clear that Sam wasn't nearly as comfortable with the mingling as the older man had been, but Dean couldn't help but give him credit for trying. Sam was sitting at a table with Michael and Emily and a number of women that Dean didn't recognize. Bent almost double, Sam leaned across to listen to one of the old ladies, his expression attentive, a polite smile on his face. Michael and Emily were part of the conversation as well, laughing with Sam and pleasing all of the women with their interest in their stories._

"_Having a good time?"_

_Dean turned to find Luke standing next to him. The older man held out a beer._

"_Yeah." Dean took the bottle. "Thanks." He took a swig. "You?"_

_Luke nodded, watching the milling crowd. He smiled, content. "Yeah."_

_They stood for awhile in companionable silence, and Dean felt some of his unease start to fade. For all the fact that he'd had been wary of the sheriff initially, Dean had come to respect and appreciate Luke's steady demeanor and dry sense of humor. And while Luke was about as prone to overt expressions of affection as Dean himself was, if pressed, Dean would have said that Luke thought he was OK. The last few days working on the house together had gone a long way toward cementing that friendship._

_Dean watched Sam approach Marge and hold out his hand. As a new song started up, Marge shook her head, waving Sam off with an embarrassed look and a smile. But Sam was not to be deterred. He said something with a shy grin, extending his hand again. Finally, Marge accepted, rising slowly as Sam led her to the dance floor._

_Luke chuckled beside him. "That'll make Marge's year."_

_Dean smiled in response. "Sam's pretty good at this kind of crap." He'd meant to say it dismissively, but even he could hear the hint of jealousy in his voice._

_Luke just took another swallow of beer._

_Marge was surprisingly light on her feet, and she and Sam were a graceful couple as they made their way around the dance floor. The song ended and a round of applause went up. Dean could see that Sam was embarrassed now, ducking his head and hunching his shoulders in a vain attempt to make his tall frame inconspicuous. He returned Marge to her seat, received a hug and a kiss and then slunk off out of sight._

"_It takes practice."_

_Luke's voice startled Dean again._

"_What?" _

"_Being good at this kind of crap. It takes practice."_

_Luke's eyes were on Jo, surrounded by women, Tommy hanging onto her skirt._

"_It can feel awkward as hell, but the more you do it, the better you'll get."_

_Luke upended his bottle, finishing it off._

"_If you turned that charm of yours toward just being friendly instead of trying to get girls into bed, you'd be more than halfway there." _

_He gave Dean a pointed look, and Dean blinked._

"_Here you are." _

_Sam ambled up to them._

"_Hey, Sam." Luke nodded at him. "I'll see you boys later. Gotta go check in with my wife." His often serious face split into a grin, and he wandered off._

"_Where've you been?"_

_Dean shrugged. "Around."_

"_Everything OK?"_

_Dean ignored him._

"_Whatever," Sam responded with a shrug of his own. He handed his brother a beer._

_Grinning, Dean finished the bottle Luke had given him and took a long swallow of the one he'd accepted from Sam._

"_Thanks. Twinkle toes."_

"_Shut up."_

xxxx


	3. Chapter 3

_Frail, Chapter3_

_xxxx_

"_What do we do?" she asked._

There'd been no answer to Jo's question.

Carefully, Dean extricated himself from Jo's grasp and went to the coffee pot, bringing it back to the table. He refilled mugs and then went to the sink, rinsing it out, replacing it on the burner.

"We'll think of something, Jo." He said it softly, making it a promise. "We'll figure it out."

She nodded, her smile uncertain, even as she tried to encourage him.

"I know we will," she said.

Luke stood abruptly.

"I'm going to bed." His gaze lingered on his wife before he looked at Sam and Dean. "Good night, boys."

"'Night," they both said.

Jo's eyes followed her husband out of the kitchen. She sat in silence a little longer before she, too, stood.

"See y'all in the morning."

Dean and Sam nodded.

xxxx

"I want to know what's going on." Michael stood in the doorway, a pissed-off look on his face.

Sam's eyes went to Dean, who turned slowly to the younger man.

"You're going to have to ask your aunt," he said, grabbing a stack of t-shirts out of the laundry basket Sam had brought in.

"I'm not a kid. I have a right to know."

Dean shot Sam a glance as he dropped the shirts in a drawer. Sam shrugged. _You know what I think, but it's your call._

"It's not up to me. If your parents say it's OK, I'll tell you, otherwise…"

"That's bullshit, and you know it!" Michael said hotly.

Both Sam and Dean raised their eyebrows. Sam opened his mouth to say he didn't think they were allowed to say, "bullshit," but Dean cut him off.

"It's not bullshit." Dean turned his back on the teenager as he tossed the laundry basket at the closet.

"I'm an adult! I…"

"If you want to be treated like an adult, Michael, act like one." Dean's tone, clipped and cool, stopped the boy mid-sentence.

"If you have a question, go ask your aunt and uncle, but don't expect me to tell you what's their business just because you're having a temper tantrum."

Michael's mouth shut on a snap. He turned on his heel and walked out of the bedroom.

Sam sat quietly on the bed while Dean opened and closed dresser drawers with a viciousness that made his younger brother smile a little.

"So," Sam said.

Dean turned to him, lips drawn into a tight line.

"How is it you didn't strangle me when I was going through that phase?" he asked conversationally.

The sharp planes of Dean's face smoothed out. He closed the last of the drawers and dropped down next to Sam on the bed.

"I actually suggested drowning you a couple of times." He turned to look at Sam. "But you know Dad. All, 'How's he going to learn, if he's dead, Dean?'"

Sam laughed out loud, and Dean grinned in response. The fact that it had probably been Dad who'd been ready to kill him, and Dean his savior, was not lost on Sam.

xxxx

The shower was running when Jo entered the bedroom. Biting her lip, she considered the closed door. To enter or not to enter; that was the question.

Ultimately, she decided "not" was the better answer, choosing instead to get changed and turn down the bed. As the water continued to run, Jo pulled on her robe and went down the hall to brush her teeth and grab a load of laundry from the boys' bathroom. When she returned, Luke was out, sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting for her.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey." She sat down next to him, leaning her head against his shoulder. He put an arm around her, drawing her into a warm embrace.

"What do you think?" he said into her hair.

"I don't know," she answered. "But I believe them."

"Yeah." He sighed. "Me, too." That was the problem.

They sat for a long moment.

"I don't know what to do," he admitted softly.

Jo felt the tears sting behind her eyes. "I don't either," she whispered.

Luke tightened his grip on her, pulling her into his lap, and she laughed shakily as she shifted awkwardly, trying to get comfortable.

"We're too old for this."

A deep chuckle rumbled in his chest, and she pressed herself against him, relaxing into the strength of him.

"Never," he said. He kissed her cheek and rested his face briefly in the bend of her neck.

He raised his head slightly, and the words of a prayer whispered against her ear; she pressed her cheek to his, closing her eyes.

"Aunt Jo?" Michael's voice – insistent, but surprisingly, not obviously enraged – broke the moment.

Luke sighed again, shaking his head.

"Come in," he called.

Jo was sliding off her husband's lap onto the bed when Michael entered the room. Thrown by the evidence of intimacy between his aunt and his uncle, Michael faltered.

"Ummm," he stuttered. "I…"

"Cut it out," Luke said impatiently. "Do you think I'd've told you to come in if you were interrupting anything?" Now he was grinning evilly at his nephew.

Michael's face registered both disgust and horror as he glared at his uncle.

"Luke, for heaven's sake!" Jo said, exasperated. "Don't…"

"Alright, alright," Luke capitulated.

There were times when he just couldn't help messing with the teenaged boys he'd married into. Michael, in particular, had brought out the worst in him the last several weeks. The honeymoon was over and everything had become a battle—whether it was a change in Tommy's bedtime or a simple political statement or an assumption about the way Jo did things. Nothing Luke did met with Michael's approval. And as sure as Michael was that he knew best, he was equally sure that Luke did not. It frustrated Luke and made him ornery.

Being replaced as "man of the house" had been a harder adjustment for the kid than Luke or Jo had anticipated.

"What do you want, Michael?" Luke moved to his side of the bed and climbed in.

"I want…" The tone of his voice was one that always elicited an immediate bristling reaction from Luke.

But Michael stopped, took a deep breath, and started over again.

"I want to know what's wrong. I want to know why Dean and Sam are suddenly here." He paused. Took another deep breath. "Please."

Luke watched the boy steadily, and he could see, under the impatience, the very real worry that was making Michael so determined. Luke glanced at his wife.

Jo said softly, "Everything's fine, honey. Nothing…"

"Aunt Jo!" It was a groan of frustration. "I'm not…"

"There's nothing…"

"Josie." Luke's quiet voice caught both their attentions. His eyes were still on Michael. "He should know."

Michael blinked.

"Luke…"

"Honey, he's 18. He's old enough to know."

Jo's eyes went from her husband to her nephew.

Michael stood silent, pale and still, but resolute. He had the look of his father and for a moment Jo's breath caught at the memory—her brother, fists clenched, face defiant, struggling to declare his own manhood to parents who would not hear.

Jo's eyes returned to Luke, and she nodded, unable to quell the fear in her heart. _When_, she wondered with an ache, _did he become this man?_

"Alright."

xxxx

"Hey."

Dean looked up from the magazine he was thumbing through to see Michael standing uncertainly in the doorway. He grunted an acknowledgement and returned his attention to the article he'd been skimming.

"I talked to Aunt Jo and Luke," the boy said hesitantly.

Now Dean's eyes came back to Michael.

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah." He paused for a moment. "They said you had a dream. Or something. About Mom. That she might be in danger." His voice cracked into boyishness at the last.

Dean set the magazine to the side, watching the kid.

"Yeah," Dean admitted. "Maybe."

Michael took a step into the room.

"Do you believe in all that?" he asked. "Like, demons and visions and stuff?"

A movement behind Michael distracted Dean, and Sam eased past the younger man who was halfway blocking the doorway. Sam eyed Michael curiously as he sidestepped him before he looked at his brother.

"Luke and Jo told him."

Sam nodded, hair still damp from the shower.

There was an uneasy silence as Sam put his stuff away and got settled.

"Do you?" Michael asked it again.

"Yeah, I do," said Dean truthfully.

Michael turned to Sam, and the younger Winchester nodded.

"And you have visions?" he asked. Sam looked to Dean before he nodded again.

"Yeah."

There was another long pause while Michael thought.

"Do you believe in it?" Dean asked quietly. He was curious generally.

Michael raised his eyes from the spot on the floor that he'd been studying.

"Yeah. I do." His eyes were troubled. "Like as an idea, you know?"

He was quiet for a minute.

"I mean, the Bible talks about it, doesn't it? Jesus cast out demons." His voice was uncertain—not about the truth of what he was saying, but in discussing it with Dean and Sam. "And some of the apostles had visions."

Dean was startled, though he wasn't sure exactly why. He knew the family was religious; he just wouldn't necessarily have thought that demons and dreams would be a part of that theology.

Sam was watching Michael closely. "Yes. Jesus did cast out demons. And the apostles did, too, some. That's where the Catholic ritual for exorcism comes from." Sam crinkled his forehead. "I think you're right about the visions, too, although I'm not exactly sure."

Dean was quiet, willing to let Sam take the lead on any theological discussion with the kid.

Michael nodded slowly, still processing.

"I guess I always believed, you know, theoretically, because, well, because it's in the Bible." He looked self-consciously at the brothers. "It's kind of disconcerting, though, to start having a conversation about it in terms of hey, demons set people on fire and one may be after your mom. Dean had a vision about it." He laughed somewhat uneasily, his voice unsteady, and his eyes were frightened behind the slightly nervous smile.

Sam nodded, sympathetic. "Yeah. Sorry about that."

Michael shook his head. "It's not your fault. I mean…" He broke off suddenly, eyes widening.

"Oh, crap. Your mom… I… I'm so sorry! I didn't… I wasn't …"

"Dude," Dean spoke over Michael's stuttering, "it's OK. Really."

"I…" The kid actually had tears in his eyes he was so mortified.

Dean got up and crossed the room.

"Michael. Relax." He patted the boy uncomfortably on the shoulder. "It's OK."

Hanging his head and struggling to get himself under control, Michael swallowed.

"I'm sorry," he said again quietly.

And Dean knew it wasn't just for the careless comment about moms and fire, but also for the outburst and maybe even for his fear.

"Hey. Finding out that demons are _really_ real entitles you to a freak out."

Dean held up a finger. "But just one," he said with mock seriousness as he led the boy further into the room.

Michael laughed unsteadily. "Got it," he said.

"How're you liking being a grown-up so far?" Sam asked with a wry smile.

Michael sank down on Dean's bed.

"Pretty much sucks."

Dean and Sam exchanged glances.

"Sometimes, yeah," Sam agreed.

There was another moment of silence as Dean decided what to say.

"Look, Michael. Yes, demons are real, but I'm not sure one's after Jo, OK? My dream was probably just a nightmare. I've never had any kind of vision before, and I don't know why it would start now, OK? But we just couldn't take the chance. Do you understand that?"

Michael nodded. "Yeah."

Dean started collecting his things in preparation for his own shower.

"What do we do?" Michael asked, unconsciously echoing his aunt.

Dean sighed.

_He still didn't know._

xxxx

Over the next several days, Dean and Sam did what they could to come up with a plan for dealing with the possibility of the demon showing up at Jo's. Sam researched what he could on the Internet, and even ventured into a couple of nearby towns to check out the local libraries. He'd gotten nowhere. Because really there'd been no place to go. There hadn't even been a place to start. There were no changes in weather patterns, no mutilated cows, no flickering lights. Nothing.

They'd considered calling their dad for the Colt, but both Sam and Dean knew that without a solid lead, their father wouldn't consider risking the last bullet.

Added to that was the fact that Dean hadn't had another dream since they'd arrived. He was about ready to call his nightmare what it had been—a dream. Except that he hadn't been able to make himself say the words out loud and get on the road again. The _what if_ was too big.

"Are y'all going to stay with us from now on?" Tommy asked. He was holding a towel ring as steadily as he could while Dean twisted the screws into place in the repaired drywall behind it.

_What possesses people to let their kids swing from every hook and rack in motel rooms?_ Dean wondered in exasperation.

"What?"

"Are you and Sam moving here?"

"No, buddy, we're not. Just visiting." He gave a final hard turn to the screw.

"Oh." Disappointment. "Why are you here now?"

Dean looked at the boy next to him. "We missed you guys," he said simply. There was always truth in that statement.

"Really?" Tommy was pleased.

"Well. Not so much _you_," Dean teased. "But, you know, everyone _else_."

Tommy rolled his eyes.

"Whatever."

The tone and the look were Sam's. Exactly.

Dean chose to ignore him.

"OK, I think that's got it." Dean pulled down on the ring, testing his workmanship. It didn't budge. Tommy reached out and gave a tug as well. Getting a tighter grip, he held on and raised his feet.

"Hey!" Dean snagged him around the waist. "Dude, you break it, you buy it."

Tommy hung in Dean's grasp, one hand still on the towel ring. "I was making sure it works!"

"It works if it holds a _towel_," Dean drawled. "Not a monkey like you. Let go."

Tommy released, and Dean swung him away, dropping him out of reach of temptation.

Dean went down on one knee, picking up the tools and materials he'd used to repair the wall. He tossed them at a large metal box a couple of feet away.

"I get to do the mini-vac!" Tommy jumped at the little the hand vacuum.

"Knock yourself out."

Locking the toolbox, Dean waited for Tommy to finish.

"Got it?"

"Yep."

Together they left the room, crossing the parking lot toward the lobby.

"How much longer are y'all going to be here?"

Dean shrugged. "Couple more days, I think."

"'kay."

Dean put a hand briefly on Tommy's shoulder and the boy turned, flashing him a quick smile. He thrust the vacuum into Dean's hand.

"See ya!" And he was off, sprinting around the corner toward the house.

Shaking his head, Dean juggled the box and the small appliance as he reached for the door into the lobby. Jo greeted him from behind the desk.

"What happened to your assistant?" she asked.

"I let him off early."

"Riiiiight," she said.

With a grin, he walked past her into the old kitchen, setting his stuff down just inside the door.

"I think I got the last of those repairs taken care of." He joined her at the front.

"Thank you so much for doing that," she said. "It's amazing how fast things pile up."

"I figure it's the least I could do." He picked up one of the stacks of credit card printouts she had laid out in front of her and began to shuffle through them, putting them in order.

"Dean."

He sighed, casting an unreadable look her way.

"Honey, I can't say that I wish you'd been right…," she smiled at him. "But having you and Sam here has been a real treat. I'm glad for that."

"I wish we could have come without freaking you guys out."

She moved her shoulders slightly.

"Eventually, Michael will start sleeping through the night again."

The stricken look on Dean's face startled her.

"Oh, Dean. Honey, I'm kidding! He's fine. Nothing has _ever_ disturbed that boy's sleep."

She touched him lightly on the sleeve. "We'll all be fine."

"Where's Luke?" he asked, changing the subject. "I thought he was going to be here this afternoon."

Jo sighed. "Yeah. That was the plan." She made a couple of notes on one of the receipts. "But he got another call out to the Potters' place." She gave Dean a dry look. "One of the perks of being married to the sheriff."

Dean frowned. "Wasn't that where he was the day we got here?"

Jo nodded.

"Weird."

Dean had met both Candace and Gene Potter, and it surprised him that they were having trouble that would involve the law. They'd seemed like a nice enough couple to him.

"They've been having some problems, financial and otherwise. Makes for a lot of stress on a marriage."

"Too bad."

"Yeah, it is."

xxxx

Luke hadn't been home for dinner. Again.

After they'd eaten, Jake pulled out the box of X-Files DVDs they'd been working their way through over the last several days. On Saturday when Jo had been distracted by the wedding of a friend in another town, they'd managed to watch almost 10 episodes of season two. Jo had returned home after being gone and found all five boys in the exact same places in front of the television they'd been when she and Luke had left at 9 o'clock that morning.

She'd been less than pleased.

"Did you even feed them?" she'd asked Dean with exasperation.

"Well, yeah," he'd said, blinking up at her from where he was stretched out on the floor. He turned to Sam. "We did, right, Sammy?" He couldn't remember what, though.

"Ummm. Yeah. Pizza?"

"There's an empty half-gallon of Blue Bell in here," Luke called from the kitchen.

"And ice cream?" Dean ventured.

She'd growled at him. Actually growled. And then stomped out of the room.

Grinning sheepishly after her, Dean shrugged, exchanged _oops_ grimaces with Sam, and returned his attention to the television.

They'd been restricted in the number of episodes they were allowed to watch each day since then.

"What's next?" Dean asked as Jake pulled a disc out of its slot.

"_Humbug_, I think?" he said, looking at Michael for confirmation, tossing him the flier that outlined each of the episodes and their order.

"Yeah."

"Excellent."

After _Humbug_, Jo sent Tommy to bed and they watched _The Calusari_ and had started on _F. Emasculata_ when there was a knock at the door.

"I'll get it."

Sam was up getting a drink and made a detour, padding on bare feet to the front door, Coke can in hand.

"Matt?" The young deputy was standing on the front porch, face pale.

"I need to talk to Jo, Sam." His voice was hoarse, and it looked to Sam for a moment like he swayed.

Reaching out to steady the other man, Sam pulled Matt into the house, taking in his disheveled appearance and shattered expression. Sam felt his stomach clench in dread.

"I'll get her. Come in." Gently he steered the shaken man into the entryhall.

"Jo!" Sam called, looking desperately toward the back of the house.

The tone of his brother's voice had Dean off the couch, trailing after Jo.

"Matt…" When she saw him, Jo faltered. Dean reached for her elbow, suddenly recognizing, along with Jo, the full import of Matt's presence.

"Jo, I'm so sorry."

The sound of Jo's sharp in-drawn breath was like a punch in Dean's gut.

_No._

"Matt." Her lips shaped his name, but no sound came, the single word an attempt to ward off the truth of what the young deputy was trying to tell her.

_No._

"Aunt Jo?" Jake.

"Matt?" Michael.

Dean's gaze went to Sam, wide-eyed and stricken, and then to the two younger boys on the threshold into the foyer. Dean looked at Jo, hoping for guidance, but she was focused on Matt, shock and denial dazing her.

He cleared his throat.

"Sam, why don't you take Jake back into the kitchen while Jo talks to Matt?" Dean said, voice gruff in an attempt to control it.

Numbly, Sam nodded, and took half a step toward Jacob.

"Yeah. Come on, Jake." Sam moved to herd the boy out of the room and out of earshot.

"Wait!" The boy sidestepped Sam, jerking his arm out of reach. "What's going on? Aunt Jo?" The adults were all scared and he wasn't sure why, and that frightened Jake more than anything else ever had.

Michael stood quietly, eyes intent on his aunt. His face had taken on the pallor of Jo's, and he stepped forward, taking her hand in his.

"Aunt Jo," he said gently.

It was the quiet that got her attention and she turned to her oldest nephew, meeting his eyes.

"It's OK," she whispered. "It's OK, Sam. Jake should stay." She closed her eyes, holding tight to the young hand that held hers so surely. "You should all stay."

When she turned back to Matt, her eyes were clear, a tenuous sheen of control covering the devastation she would deal with later.

"Where is he?"

Dean put an arm around Jake and pulled the boy to his side. The contact stilled Jake, but against his ribs, Dean could feel the hammering of the boy's heart.

"He's at St. David's," Matt said brokenly. "Dr. Jones said you needed to be there as soon as possible. He was in the ER when I left, but the doc said they're going to have to make decisions about surgery…"

"Surgery?" Jo's question interrupted Matt's frantic outburst. "He's alive?"

Matt looked at her uncomprehendingly and then around the room at the stunned faces that circled him.

"Yes," he said slowly, understanding dawning. "Oh my God."

Jo started to cry and laugh at the same time, a slightly hysterical edge to the sound. "You said, 'I'm sorry,' and I…" She put her hands up to her face.

Dean felt the relief weaken his knees abruptly and he pulled Jake into a full hug, holding on fiercely to keep from falling.

"He's OK?" Jake's incredulous question was asked into Dean's shoulder and Dean met Sam's eyes over the younger boy's head, watching Sam slowly sink to the floor of the entryhall, a hand coming up to cover his eyes.

_Dear God._

As soon as he could stand on his own again, Dean was going to beat the ever-living crap out of Sheriff's Deputy Matthew Xavier Rodriguez.

Matt was almost incoherent in his efforts to apologize. "Jo, I'm sorry. I just… He's not dead. But it's bad. It's really bad." His voice broke. "Things went so wrong and I…" He came to a full stop. "We have to get the hospital, Jo. We have to go. Now."

The urgency in Matt's plea finally penetrated the family's giddiness of relief that Luke wasn't actually dead. He'd reached out for Jo's arm and it looked like, in his distress, the young man was going to drag Jo out the door with him.

Releasing Jake, Dean stepped quickly between Matt and Jo. He took the deputy by the shoulders, giving enough of a shake to startle the man out of the single-mindedness that seemed to have driven everything out of his head but getting Jo to Luke.

"Matt, we're coming." Dean said it gently, but firmly. He looked at Jo and the boys. "I'll drive."

Jo nodded, reaching for her purse and keys on the table by the door. Michael and Jake surged forward, as well, Sam scrambling to his feet.

"Tommy," Jo said suddenly. She looked at Dean, an unfamiliar uncertain expression on her face. "Should we wake him up? I don't want him to…"

"I'll stay," Sam said, taking the decision out of her hands.

Dean nodded, grabbing his jacket off one of the hooks in the wall, holding out a hand to Jo for the keys.

"Let's go."

Sam stood to the side while everyone poured out of the house and down the steps. Matt got into the sheriff's cruiser while the others climbed into Jo's battered Suburban. As he held the door for Jo, Dean turned to look at his brother standing tall and slender in the porchlight. In the shadows, Sam's features were barely visible, but Dean could still read the worry and fear clearly on his face.

_Be careful._

Dean nodded, his eyes meeting Sam's.

Sam held up a hand as Dean slammed Jo's door and bolted for the driver's side.

When he could no longer see the taillights, Sam turned and went back into the house, closing the door softly behind him.

xxxx

Dean hated hospitals. Hated the smell of antiseptic, the incessant humming of machines, the memories—too many—of pain and helplessness. Leaning against the wall, watching Jo with Luke, Dean added another item to his ever expanding list: "Hospitals: Why I Hate Them."

Jo sat, dazed and pale, holding Luke's hand, eyes desperately on his face.

"I don't understand," she whispered, addressing not her husband, but the man beside her, the man who had married them only months ago.

"I don't understand," she said brokenly, eyes lost as they went to the pastor and then to Dean.

_Why?_

Jo adrift—questioning—made the ground under Dean feel suddenly uneven.

He was humbled and uneasy that she would let him see her this way—vulnerable and hurting—when he'd watched her, gentle and sure, with Michael and Jacob just moments before. She trusted him with her weakness, and he found himself overwhelmed by that responsibility and a fear that somehow he would fail.

"I don't understand either," Rich Hart said softly, his voice as unsteady as Jo's own.

They'd all three sat in stunned and uncomprehending silence as the doctors had given their grim prognosis. A shotgun blast full in the chest had inflicted a massive amount of damage that the surgeons had done their best to repair, but they weren't optimistic.

_You need to prepare yourselves_, they'd said. _Call the rest of the family. Make arrangements._ _We know it's hard_, they'd said, not knowing at all.

Dean had held one of Jo's hands, Rich the other, all of them nodding numbly along with the doctors as they delivered blow after blow of bad news. After the doctors were finished, the three went into the waiting room and talked to the boys, Jo steady and hopeful as she'd held them, rubbing their backs, telling them she loved them, that Luke loved them, that everything was going to be OK.

It was only when she'd seen Luke that she'd faltered, undone by the reality in front of her.

Rich moved the hand that had been holding hers to her shoulder as he put an arm around her. And Jo, biting her lip, turned into his arm as she cried.

Watching Jo crumble, Dean felt all the helplessness he'd been repressing since Matt had arrived at the house rise out of the pit of his stomach and lurch into his throat, threatening to strangle him. He couldn't be here. He was going to hit someone or break down himself, and neither of those was an acceptable option. Not here. Not now.

He had to get out.

Jaw clenched and eyes bright with unwanted tears, Dean looked at the pastor and with a movement of his head indicated that he was leaving. The man nodded, his expression almost unbearably understanding as he met Dean's devastated gaze.

"I'll be here," he said silently.

And Dean fled.

He got down the hall and into a stairwell before he lost it, punching the door as it swung shut behind him.

"Shit!" he yelped, shaking out the initial numbness in his knuckles, waiting for the burn and the pain that he knew from experience would follow.

"Shitshitshitshit," he whispered, cradling his now throbbing hand against his chest as he leaned against the wall, dropping into a crouch. Bending over, he pressed his flushed face against his knees, struggling to regain some degree of control.

He drew in several shuddering breaths, feeling his heart begin to slow as he let his mind go blank. _Get a grip_, he told himself fiercely. _Just. Get… a… grip._

Finally, Dean raised his head and lowered his butt the rest of the way to the floor. Crossing his legs Indian style in front of him, he let his head fall back sharply against the wall behind him.

_Ow. _

Again.

_Ow._

The deliberate discomfort in his head distracted him from the ache in his hand—sharp—the one in his chest—dull—and helped clear the panic from his racing mind.

He sat still for a long time, trying to formulate a plan of action. There was part of him that suspected that just being there for Jo might be what would help her most, but the thought of being caught in the room with her grief, trapped by his own helplessness was more than he thought he could handle right now.

He bumped his head back against the wall again.

_I need…_

Bump.

_I need to call Sam._

The door into the stairwell began to open, and Dean cursed under his breath, wiping a quick hand over his eyes as he got to his feet.

"Dean?"

"Matt," he said, surprised to see the younger man.

"How is he?"

Dean swallowed. He couldn't make the words come out, so he just shook his head.

Matt closed his eyes. "Damn," he whispered.

Dean cleared his throat.

"What happened out there, Matt?"

The deputy came the rest of the way into the stairwell, letting the door close behind him. He looked at Dean tiredly as he put a shoulder against the wall not far from Dean.

"I don't know, man," he said. "I mean, I know. But it just doesn't make any sense."

"It was Potter?"

Matt sighed.

"Yeah. Another call from Candy. Gene was wild, out of control, breaking things. Luke and I have been on half a dozen of those calls with them over the last few months, and we were concerned that the situation seemed to be escalating. But we've never been able to get Candace to press charges or even leave. Just go stay with her mom."

Matt took a deep breath, leaning his head against the wall.

"They've never had that kind of problem before and it was like she just couldn't get her head around the fact that he'd changed. Hell. _We_ couldn't our heads around it. Not really. Kept giving him the benefit of the doubt, hoping he go back to being normal. Like she did."

His voice broke, and he was quiet for a long moment.

"So, today, we get out there and before we were even out of the car, we can hear the screaming and yelling inside. Worse than anything before. Weird. Violent. It was giving me the creeps and I could tell that Luke was kind of freaked out too, you know? He gets all still and quiet when he's spooked, you know, thinking hard?" He looked at Dean for affirmation.

Dean didn't know that he'd ever seen Luke afraid, but he could imagine that would be the man's reaction. Calmness. Control. Dean nodded.

"We're hearing all this commotion in the trailer, things crashing around, Candy screaming bloody murder, Gene yelling. Luke tells me to grab the shotgun and he heads for the door, but he'd only gotten a couple of steps when we heard a gun go off. And suddenly there's no more screaming."

It took the young deputy awhile before he could go on, and Dean gave him the time, recognizing the connection the man had to all the parties involved in this evening's tragedy.

"We just froze. I… I just stood there, like a damn fool, not knowing what to do. But, Luke snapped out of it quick, told me to call for back up and he started back toward the trailer. He had his gun out and I think he was going to try to get to the side of the trailer, find a window or something, but before he got there, the door opened."

Matt had started to pant lightly as the story progressed, moving closer to the attack on Luke.

"It was like… You know how people say things were in slow motion? It was like that… It was … Gene was there on the steps, the gun coming up, and Luke trying to stop. And then…"

Matt broke off, and Dean let him collect himself for a moment.

"What happened after?" Dean asked quietly. "After Luke was shot?"

The deputy pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes.

"Gene ran off, got in his truck. I don't… I was calling dispatch, trying to keep Luke from bleeding out. I…"

Dean nodded, putting a hand on the other man's shoulder. They stood for awhile in silence again, before Dean asked, "What do you think happened?"

The younger man shook his head, a hand coming up to rub at his eyes.

"Drugs, we think. We found a lab out back in one of the sheds. Crystal meth. But, even so, I… There was something… Off. Weird. I don't know. The whole place made my skin crawl."

The look he sent Dean was apologetic and a little embarrassed.

"Maybe I'm just not used to that kind of thing – drugs and murder. We're a hick town, I know that. But it just felt … _wrong_."

He gave a short bark of laughter.

"Hell, it _is_ wrong. Maybe that was all it was. I…"

Matt broke off his ramble again. Gave a heaving sigh.

"I'm sorry, man, I just…"

Dean put his hand on Matt's shoulder again, gave a squeeze.

"Don't. It's OK."

There was another long moment of quiet.

"Listen, Matt. I need to get back."

He paused, suddenly remembering. "Crap. And I haven't called Sam."

Matt pushed away from the wall.

"Yeah."

"If we can help…"

The man smiled tightly.

"Thanks. I need to get back myself. Just wanted to check in."

They parted outside Luke's door. Matt stepped inside for a couple of minutes, shaking Dean's hand on the way out.

When Dean entered, Rich said something in Jo's ear, moving away from her and toward the door.

"Are you going to be OK with her for awhile?" he asked Dean as he approached. "I thought I might go out in the waiting room…"

Dean nodded. "Yeah. Of course. I'm sorry about earlier, I just…"

The older man patted him on the shoulder. "Don't worry about it, son. You're here now. And we don't want to overwhelm her with our hovering probably."

Dean settled himself in the chair next to Jo, taking her hand in his.

"Hey," he said softly.

Her eyes came to his. "Hey." Her fingers tightened on his slightly. "Thank you."

He moved his head involuntarily, rejecting the idea that she had anything to thank him for, but she'd already turned back to Luke, her other hand clasping his.

"What time is it?" she asked suddenly.

Dean looked at his watch. "A little after 5am."

"Have you checked in with Sam?"

Dean winced. He'd forgotten again.

"No, I'll call him right now, if you want me to."

She shook her head, trying to think.

"Why don't you just go ahead and take Michael and Jacob home? They've been up here all night. I should have thought of that earlier, poor things."

"They'll want to see Luke, Jo," he said gently. They'd wanted to after Jo had talked to them earlier, but she'd put them off, wanting to see Luke herself before she agreed to the boys visiting.

"I don't want to scare them," she said, voice breaking.

"Jo, they need to see him. They're going to feel cheated and angry if you deny them this." He was trying to be as gentle as he could with her, but he knew that Michael and Jacob deserved to see their uncle.

She closed her eyes, tears escaping down her cheeks.

"You're right," she said finally. "Just give me a minute. I don't want them to see me like this."

"Take your time."

After a couple of minutes, she got herself under control and with a tremulous smile, she sent Dean out to collect they boys.

When Dean entered the waiting room, he was amazed at the number of people there. It took him a minute to spot the two kids he was looking for because there were so many there with their parents, and everyone had started to their feet when he walked in.

"I…"

"Dean!" Michael and Jacob forced themselves to the front, a path clearing and then closing behind as people surged forward for news.

"Is everything OK? What…?" Anxious faces—familiar and unfamiliar—surrounded him and Dean took an involuntary step back, blinking.

"Jo wants the boys to come back and see Luke and then I'm going to take them home to get some rest."

He addressed the entire crowd without really knowing why, but then stopped, not sure what else to say.

Rich was suddenly beside him, drawing Michael and Jacob apart, separating them from the people around them.

"That's probably a good idea for the rest of us, too," Rich said, addressing everyone in the room.

He turned to Dean.

"Y'all go on back," he said shepherding them away from the crowd.

The boys had started down the hall, and Rich said for Dean alone, "I'll stay here until someone can relieve me. We'll watch out for her until you boys get back."

Dean nodded, again not sure what to say.

xxxx

Sam startled out of a restless sleep and lay still for a moment trying to get his bearings. He was stretched out on the couch in the family room, head crammed into a corner, feet hanging off the edge. Stretching out the crick in his neck, he looked at his watch.

_4:27_

Sitting up, he reached for his phone on the coffee table. He couldn't imagine that he would have slept through a call, but…

_Nothing._

He chewed on the inside of his cheek for a minute. _Why hadn't Dean called?_ He flipped open his phone and his thumb hovered uncertainly over the speed dial for Dean's cell.

If it was bad news, Dean would have called. No news was good news, right?

Dean was probably busy helping Jo and the boys deal with the all the crap that goes along with an emergency. He didn't need Sam calling and demanding to be kept up-to-date when there were more important things going on.

Sam closed the phone. He'd wait until Dean had time to call.

Still in his bare feet, Sam mounted the stairs. The door to the boys' room was closed, and Sam pushed it open slightly, listening for sounds within. When he didn't hear anything, he went in, stepping carefully over shadowed objects on the floor until he got to the bunk beds that Jake and Tommy shared.

Tommy was curled tightly under the covers of the bottom bunk, just the top of his blond head showing above the blankets. The rag monkey Tommy denied he slept with any more had slipped between the bed and the wall and Sam ducked his head under the top bunk, reaching for the tattered animal. It was easy enough to rescue, and Sam tucked it close to Tommy's side so that the boy would see it if he woke and missed its presence. Running a light hand over Tommy's hair, Sam backed away from the bed and out of the room.

When he got downstairs, Sam grabbed all the discarded plates and glasses out of the television room, taking them into the kitchen. Working steadily, Sam got the dishes cleared and in the dishwasher before he wiped down all the counters and the tabletop. Still restless, he decided that he could get a load of wash started as well, and so headed to grab his and Dean's dirty clothes before he collected everyone else's upstairs.

Sam had just gathered all the boys' laundry from their bathroom when a loud banging on the front door startled him. He stopped where he was, momentarily frozen by the unexpected noise. The rapping didn't pause, becoming increasingly insistent, and Sam cursed under his breath as he ran for the door.

"Who is that?"

Tommy's voice, sleepy, but curious came from behind his bedroom door.

"No one. Go back to sleep," Sam called as he made for the stairs. He was suddenly worried about who might be at the door and with what kind of news. "I mean it, Tommy. Stay in bed."

Sam ground his teeth as he heard small feet hit the hardwood floor, and the creak of the bedroom door as it opened.

Taking the stairs two at a time, Sam was aware of Tommy behind him, the boy pausing on the landing, peering after him. By the time he got to the front door, Sam was prepared to berate his brother or one of the boys for waking up Tommy, but underneath there was a gnawing fear that this might be someone with news he wasn't going to want to hear.

When he opened the door, Sam was confronted by a vaguely familiar face.

"Gene?" Uncertainty.

Fist raised in the motion of knocking, Gene Potter stood on the front porch. Confused by the man's sudden appearance, Sam didn't initially take notice of the low-frequency buzzing that had started right behind his eyes. But the vibrations increased quickly in their intensity and Sam blinked, finally fully taking in the man before him.

Gene Potter, eyes black as night, mouth twisted in a grimace that might have been rage or could have been terror was shaking so violently that his skin looked like it was undulating in waves over his bones.

Sam had only a second to take all this in before the man's arm slashed forward, fist opening, fingers splaying, pointing directly at Sam.

In the same moment that Sam felt a shattering blow to his chest, his head exploded in a bright light of pain, the psychic shockwave lifting him off his feet and flinging him across the entryhall, slamming him against the doorjamb into the family room.

Around the agony in head, Sam heard Tommy's scream of terror, the crack of bones broken, and the dull thud of his head connecting with the lintel before his world went black.

xxxx


	4. Chapter 4

_Frail, Chapter 4_

_xxxx_

"_The ninja turtles are an interesting choice for Christmas cookies," Jo commented._

"_Dean!" Sam's yelp of protest from across the kitchen made Dean hunch his shoulders._

"_Tattle-tale," he muttered to Jo, who smiled at him, unrepentant. _

_Sam had crossed the room and was frowning unhappily at the cookies his older brother had cut out._

"_Come on, man," he said. "Be serious." _

_Sam pried the Michelangelo cutter out of Dean's hand and replaced it with one of a plain, old angel. Tommy joined them, looking at Dean critically.   
_

"_You're gonna have to start over," he said, reaching out to mash the unfortunate turtles into a ball._

"_Hey!" Dean protested, grabbing the small wrist before the little hand attached to it could do any damage._

"_Ah, ah," Jo intervened, gently moving Tommy out of the way. "Ninja turtles aren't completely out of the question." Both Sam and Tommy made shocked, disapproving noises. "Just… maybe we could start on some more traditional Christmas shapes, Dean?"_

_He scowled at his brother and Tommy, but acquiesced, waggling the angel cookie cutter at them before he put it down to start rolling out the next ball of dough._

"_Thank you."_

_Dean had been a grudging participant in the baking from the get-go. Having failed to convince Jake and Michael to join the festivities, Tommy turned to Sam and Dean. Sam had been unselfconsciously enthusiastic about the Christmas baking, and the double team of Tommy and Sam had been impossible for Dean to refuse. Jo had watched with amusement and no small amount of pity as Tommy's pleading and Sam's excitement had battered down Dean's defenses._

"_Fine," he'd ultimately grumbled. _

"_Sucker," Jake had muttered derisively as soon as Dean was out of earshot._

_Dean's reluctance had manifested itself in sarcastic remarks and lots of banging things around, which Sam had cheerfully ignored, content that he'd gotten his way. If Tommy had been initially cowed by these signs of Dean's displeasure, he soon adopted Sam's attitude, chattering happily at both Winchesters as they'd worked. After they'd finished mixing the ingredients, Sam handed Dean a bowl of dough and an old Tupperware container with a selection of random cookie cutters, assigning him the task of cutting out the sugar cookies. _

_His first choice rejected, Dean used the angel shape until he couldn't stand it any more, and then dug around the box of cutters for something else. He paused over a shape, picking it up slowly._

"_We used to have this one," he said suddenly._

_Jo turned to look. "Which one?"_

_He held it out to her. It was an old metal cookie cutter in the shape of a Christmas tree. Jo had gotten it as a wedding present almost 30 years before._

_Sam moved over to Dean, taking the tree from him and examining it carefully. He peered into the box, stirring the contents slightly with a finger._

"_Are there other ones we used to have?" he asked._

_Dean's hand joined Sam's and they sorted through the container._

"_Yeah, this one, I think." Dean pulled out a Santa Claus. "And maybe this one?" A different angel._

_They were from the same set as the Christmas tree. Jo looked in the box of the remaining cookie cutters and pulled out another one – a star. _

"_What about this one?" She handed it to Dean. "And I think there may have been a present and a wreath." It had been a box of six. Two were lost._

_Dean nodded. "The present," he said softly. "I always wanted that one." His gaze was a little unfocused._

_Sam was watching Dean uncertainly. "You never talked about making cookies before."_

_Dean blinked. He glanced at Sam and then away. "I forgot," he said, turning his back to his brother, setting the cookie cutters they'd gathered to the side._

"_You forgot?" Sam wasn't questioning it, just trying to understand._

"_Sam, I was four. Stuff is… I don't know… hazy." Dean was focusing all his attention on rolling out the dough. "Weird things make me remember sometimes, OK?" _

_Sam was silent for a beat. "Yeah. OK." He went back to his place, stirring the gingerbread dough._

_Tommy looked from Sam to Dean and then at Jo. She smiled at him._

"_Who's going to help me make the icing?" she asked._

_The quiet between the brothers had been thoughtful, rather than tense, and Jo had let it be. Tommy maintained an uneasy silence for about two minutes and then began a medley of Christmas carols that Jo joined in on. Sam's tone deaf contribution to Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer had been particularly poignant, and Dean's heckling helped make the rest of the afternoon pass quickly._

_Tommy's help had lasted until the first set of cookies came out of the oven. He'd taken a tray with sugar cookies and milk on it out to his brothers and uncle never to return. Sam's downfall had been a soaking bowl of red icing that he'd upended down his front as he was washing dishes, dying his shirt, jeans and shoes an ugly shade of pink. He'd stripped down to his boxers, tossed his clothes into the washer and made a dash to the back of the house for a shower. He was later waylaid by cookies and milk in the television room as well._

_In the end, it had been Dean and Jo who'd put the last of the cookies in to bake. They stood at the kitchen sink, Jo rinsing while Dean put dishes in the dish washer._

"_Sorry for the cookie drama earlier," Dean said suddenly as he bent over to drop a handful of silverware in the holder. _

_Jo cast a quick glance at him before she shrugged, handing him a bowl._

"_That wasn't drama," she said easily. "You know the drama that goes on in this house."_

_The corner of Dean's mouth quirked up as the looked over at her._

_A couple more dishes went into the dishwasher._

"_I think it's hard not to remember a parent," Jo said. "Tommy goes through stages where he can't get enough about his parents. It's not always easy on those of us do remember. Bringing up those memories."_

_There was a comfortable silence._

"_Sometimes I think Sam doesn't get that I was four when she died. He thinks I should remember, and a lot of times I don't."_

_He paused._

"_I always tried to tell him everything I remembered," he said._

_Jo had no doubt about that. Thoughtfully, she faced him, leaning a hip against the counter._

"_On some levels, I would imagine that in Sam's mind you've always been 'grown up,' so it's hard for him to think of you as a child. It probably doesn't occur to him very often that you weren't much more than a baby yourself when y'all lost your mother," she said gently._

_Dean nodded accepting a plastic tumbler from her. _

"_May I ask you a question?" she asked hesitantly._

_Dean found a place for one last glass. He closed the door of the dishwasher and turned his face slightly toward her, but didn't meet her eyes._

"_How did she die?"_

_Jo nodded._

"_A fire."_

_She couldn't help the sharp intake of breath._

"_Oh, Dean."_

"_I woke up because Dad was yelling and when I went out in the hall, he was there with the baby. Dad gave me Sam and told me to run and not look back." _

_His eyes finally came to hers. "So I did."_

_Jo swallowed. She reached out and took his hand. "You did exactly the right thing, Dean."_

_He eased his fingers out of hers and smiled tightly, taking a step back. _

"_I know," he said, expression closed, not believing a word._

_xxxx_

_Luke's daughter and her family arrived the following day. Although Dean and Sam had tried to insist that they should move out to the motel so that Jenny and Henry and their daughter, Macy, could be in the house, they were overridden every time they tried to force the issue._

"_Have you lived in a house with a small child recently?" Luke asked blandly._

"_Really, Dean. We appreciate it, but I promise. It's better that we have our own space." Dean had tried again when the Fosters arrived. Jenny smiled at him, but her eyes followed her husband who was scowling as he dragged their suitcases out of the back of the station wagon toward the door to their room. Jenny was heavily pregnant with their second child, and holding Macy, looked ready to drop._

_The Winchesters had met Luke's children the weekend of the wedding, but they'd barely exchanged more than a sentence or two, Jenny and Daniel having understandably focused the majority of their attention on friends and family. This would be the first time Dean and Sam had spent any time with Luke's daughter, and Dean found himself mildly uneasy about the new dynamic._

_Luke's son, Daniel, would be spending Christmas with his girlfriend's family in Florida. Luke had told them at dinner a couple of nights earlier that Daniel planned to ask Cynthia to marry him on Christmas Eve. _

"_At least we'll only be responsible for the rehearsal dinner this time around," he'd said dryly to Jo._

_Jo had stuck her bottom lip out at him. "With only boys left, I'm never going to get a chance to plan a wedding." She'd looked consideringly around the table at the five young men sitting there. "I think one of you should fall in love with a girl who has a bad relationship with her mother, so that I can help with the wedding." She'd nodded her head to herself as if that settled the matter. The oldest four had pointedly ignored her. The youngest had mulled over his aunt's words._

"_Abby says her mom's mean sometimes," he'd said thoughtfully._

_xxxx_

_Macy was, in the words of her grandfather, a pistol. Bright and inquisitive, she talked a blue streak while in constant motion. Her five "uncles" were enthralled. _

"_Sam. Michael." Jenny found them seated on the floor in Dean's and Sam's room, stuffed animals and a couple of dolls scattered around them on the floor. Macy was directing some sort of game. The two young men turned toward the door._

"_You know that you don't have to do whatever she says, right?"_

"_Oh. Yeah, of course," said Sam, as if not understanding why she felt the need to ask. His finger nails had been painted bright pink._

"_We don't," agreed Michael. His hair had a pig tail over each ear._

"_Found it!" Dean's voice was triumphant behind her. He held aloft a green plush elephant._

"'_Her,' Uncle Dean. Ellie is a girl!" Macy's voice was impatient._

"_I found her, I mean," he amended._

_Jenny looked down at Dean's bare feet. Fluorescent purple toe nails._

_That's it._

"_Macy. Come here, please."_

_Her mother's tone was pleasant, but unmistakably firm. The little girl climbed slowly to her feet. _

"_Jenny, we're sorry," Dean said, exchanging a glace with Sam and Michael. "We didn't…"_

"_Dean this is so not about anything y'all did. This about Macy taking advantage…"_

"_She wasn't…" Now Sam and Michael scrambled up._

"_So y'all usually paint your nails," she asked, an eyebrow raising. Sam jerked his hands behind his back and Dean curled his toes under._

"_Ummm."_

"_And I've never seen you wear your hair that way, little brother." Quick fingers pulled out the small rubber bands._

"_Well," Michael mumbled smoothing down his hair._

"_We'll be right back." She held out her hand to her daughter and, dark head bowed, Macy took it as she trailed after her mother._

"_I told you letting her paint our nails was going too far, Sam!" Dean hissed._

"_You said it was going too far when she wanted to paint your nails, Dean," Sam retorted. "You thought it was hilarious when she wanted to paint mine." He huffed out a breath at his brother. "It's not my fault you cave at the first sign of tears."_

_Dean scowled at Sam. It was true. He'd always been helpless in the face of tears. Sam's tears being the ones that had broken him more often than not when they were growing up. Though, of course, Sam wouldn't recognize that._

"_Bi-- Brat," he growled. _

"_Ass," Sam returned, smirking that Dean had changed what he was going to say. Jo really hated the word "bitch."_

_There was a motion at the door and all three young men turned toward it._

"_I'm sorry," Macy said softly._

_Three sets of male eyes looked at her mother in confusion._

"_Macy's sorry that she's been bossing you boys around and asking you to do things that you may not have wanted to do," she looked down at her daughter, "but have done anyway because you love her so much. She's sorry she took advantage of how much you love her."_

_Michael stepped forward and crouched down in front of the girl._

"_It's OK, Macy." The child put her arms around his neck, and Michael hugged her gently. He looked up at Jenny._

"_It's really OK," he said again, smiling a little shamefacedly at her. "I've kind of had fun."_

_Jenny smiled at him, shaking her head. "Well, you're not going to have to live full time with the little monster you've created after the holidays," she said dryly._

"_It's our job, as uncles, to spoil her, right?" Dean asked. _

_He was watching Jenny carefully, not sure how she'd react to his claim of "uncle" on her daughter even though she'd been the one who had bestowed that title on both him and Sam._

_Jenny met his eye squarely, reminding him of her father for the first time since he'd met her._

"_And a mother's duty to bring the hammer down when it's needed."_

_Dean snorted softly, nodding his acknowledgement of that truth._

"_Fair enough."_

_They exchanged brief smiles of understanding._

"_Macy, honey, will you play nicely with your uncles while mommy takes a nap?"_

_The child nodded, snagging her toy from Dean as she re-entered the room._

"_Jo said she'd watch her if y'all get tired, OK?" Jenny added to Dean as he followed Macy in._

"_Sure," Dean agreed, just because he knew she wanted him to. "I hope you get some rest."_

_Jenny sighed ruefully, pointing at her belly. "This one's a night owl."_

_xxxx_

_At dinner that night, Jenny replayed her conversation with the Winchesters and Michael, heartlessly including the painted nails and pigtails in her story. _

_Jake and Luke had hollered out loud, demanding to see Sam's fingernails and Dean's toenails, which were, by the time supper rolled around, completely devoid of polish. A raid of Jo's bathroom had produced a bottle of polish remover that they'd practically bathed in to get all the color off._

"_I'm surprised she didn't braid Sam's hair," Luke drawled, rolling he eyes. "It's long enough." He looked pointedly at Michael. "If you'd get a haircut…"_

_There were groans around the table. The length of the boys' hair had been one of the few things that Jo and Luke couldn't agree on. Jo actually liked the shaggy look the boys were all wearing these days and so refused to back Luke when he tried to insist that the kids – Michael specifically – get a haircut. Sam's hair, which had never bothered Luke before except on principle, was now an added voice of dissent in his campaign for short hair on the males in the family. And so he'd expanded his war to include Sam._

"_Now Jake and Dean," he continued loudly over the moaning, refusing to back down. "That's some masculine hair on those two." Jacob and Dean clinked milk glasses across the table._

"_Whatever," Michael and Sam said in chorus, secure in Jo's approval. They toasted each other._

_A chair scraped back._

"_Well, good-night."_

_Jenny's husband, Henry, stood, picking up his plate and taking it to the counter._

_There was a brief moment of confusion among the rest of the family._

"_Oh!" Jo said, surprised, looking around the table. "Well, Henry, there's dessert coming up, if you'd like some. We can get these plates cleared…"_

"_No, thank you, Jo," he said, smiling politely. "I'm just going to go on to bed." He looked at Jenny._

_She stood._

"_Yes, thank you, Jo. We really probably should get Macy to bed." She was smiling, but her eyes were apologetic. She reached for her plate and her daughter's._

"_Leave that, sweetheart," Jo said. "The boys will get it." She stood. "Are you sure you don't want any dessert?"_

"_Good night." Henry said it just before he shut the back door behind him._

_There was an awkward silence._

_Jenny picked up her daughter. Macy had her thumb in her mouth._

"_Thank you, Jo," she said, kissing Jo on the cheek as she moved past her. "Maybe we can get some tomorrow?"_

_Luke stood as Jenny approached him._

"_Baby, are you sure?" he asked softly, before she kissed him._

"_Yeah, Daddy, I am," she answered. She looked around the table. "Good night, y'all," she said. Macy wiggled her fingers at everyone, thumb still firmly in place._

"_Night."_

_The door closed behind her._

"_OK, that was rude." _

_Jake spoke first._

"_Jacob." Jo's voice was quelling, but her eyes were concerned as they met Luke's across the table._

_Luke's own face was troubled as he looked at his wife. But "Let's get this table cleared" was what he said. And "I'm in the mood for some cobbler."_

_xxxx_

"_Do you like Henry?"_

_The question was from Jake and addressed to Luke. Luke saw Dean's head come up from where he was working. The three of them were in an old shed out behind the house, making repairs that Luke thought could transform the run-down building into a barn of sorts. There should be enough space for a couple of stalls and a tack room—if they'd measured correctly. A small field to the back of it, fenced, would make a serviceable corral. Jake was in ecstasy._

_Luke sighed. He'd been afraid he was going to have to have this conversation with one of the boys during the week. Henry had not endeared himself to many of his new in-laws over the last few days._

"_Well," he started._

"_He's kind of a jackass," Jake said._

_Luke heard Dean's muffled snort and turned to pin that young man with a stare. Dean ducked his head back to the board he was painting._

"_Jake…" Luke tried again._

"_Why would Jenny even marry him?" He sounded personally offended. "She's really cool."_

_Luke bit his lip, deliberately avoiding Dean's gaze this time. Jacob had something of a crush on his quiet step-sister (step-cousin?), and it had not gone unnoticed – or uncommented on – by the adults in the family. _

"_I know Henry can be difficult sometimes," Luke acknowledged. He wasn't about to admit to Jake his own struggles with the man. Not at this point anyway. "But he has his good qualities."_

_Now, Jake snorted. "Like what?"_

_Crap._

"_Well…" Luke tried to think. "He's smart." Jake was watching him, expression completely unconvinced. OK, what else?_

"_He tries." This was from Dean, and Luke looked at the younger man, surprised._

"_He does." Dean sounded defensive. "The other night when he left the table before dessert?" Jake and Luke nodded. "He hasn't done that again." Dean lifted a shoulder slightly. "I bet Jenny told him he'd been rude." He returned his attention to his painting. "You have to give him credit for trying."_

_Luke raised an eyebrow. He hadn't noticed that._

"_Look, Jake. I know that Henry's a little awkward socially, but I don't think he means to be rude. He's just never been around a family like ours before." _

_Henry was the only child of a single mother, and seemed to expect a degree of quiet and control in his surroundings that just didn't exist in the Sweed household. It hadn't even before Luke had married Jo, but three young boys combined with the personalities of the Winchester brothers created a noise to chaos ratio that could be overwhelming to even the most seasoned. Henry was way out of his depth, and he responded by shutting down and shutting out._

"_And the truth is… what matters most is that Jenny loves him." This was a mantra that Luke chanted under his breath during visits. "And Henry loves Jenny." He paused to let that sink in. "He may not show it the way you and I would, but he does."_

_Jake's eyes were downcast as he absorbed what Luke said._

"_Still…" the boy mumbled._

_Smiling with sympathy, Luke reached out and put a hand on his nephew's shoulder. "I know it's hard, and that, well, it sucks sometimes, but the best way we can love Jenny is to try to love Henry, too." He squeezed gently. "OK?"_

_Jake scuffed the toe of his tennis shoe in the dirt of the floor. "Yeah, OK."_

_Henry wasn't a bad man. Luke knew that. Henry had deep convictions and solid integrity. He loved Jenny and Macy without reservation. But, good Lord. Luke had never met such a humorless, rigid man in all his days. Although, frankly, marriage to Jenny and the birth of Macy had softened Henry fairly significantly. _

_Jake had no idea._

_Late in the afternoon, Jake left with Michael for a hayride several of the parents had set up for the kids. The fact that there would be hot chocolate and carols as they rode had prompted great eye-rolling from Jake at the cheesiness of it all. But he clearly hadn't wanted to miss out either._

_Dean stayed behind after Jake left, and Luke enjoyed the company. Dean was a clever hand at construction—quiet and diligent once he got started. The two men worked in an easy silence for awhile._

"_Listen." Luke was holding the end of a 2x4 Dean was cutting with a circular saw. Dean looked up._

"_Thanks for what you said earlier about Henry. I get so frustrated with the man I forget that he does try."_

_Dean shrugged, bending his attention to his cut again._

"_Sam does that sometimes. Tells me I'm being rude when I don't realize it."_

_Watching Dean speculatively, Luke let the silence fall again._

_It had taken Luke awhile to get a handle on the young man he was working with. Luke had watched Dean closely when he and his brother had first shown up at the motel, wary of any potential for danger to Jo and the boys. Jo's immediate connection with Dean and Sam had alleviated some of Luke's uneasiness because he trusted her insight into people. But he'd still kept an eye on the Winchesters, particularly Dean, who Luke judged to be one of those handsome kids who'd always been able to get by on his looks, long-practiced at smooth-talking his way out of trouble—usually leaving behind a mess for others to clean up, rarely touched by the devastation left in his wake. _

_In some ways, Luke thought he'd probably been pretty accurate in that initial assessment; but he also recognized that there was a deep-lying sensitivity in Dean Winchester that very few people ever got a chance to see. Even Sam didn't seem to see it a great deal of the time._

_The trouble, Luke had discovered, was that Dean was a skillful chameleon, changing faces according to the need of the moment. Luke knew that everyone, to some degree or another, put on a different face with different people. The interesting thing to Luke was how different each of Dean's faces could be, and the puzzle that Luke chewed over was which of these faces was closest to the truth of who this young man really was._

_In Luke's estimation, he and Jo had probably gotten a better glimpse of Dean's true nature than most. Primarily because the boy had been so worn down when he and Sam had stumbled into their lives. The kid had been too physically tired, too emotionally exhausted, to maintain the walls that usually shielded him—walls that were mostly impregnable to the world, but that had been surprisingly fragile in Jo's presence._

_The brashness and protective arrogance had fallen away, been chipped away, exposing a strength and a kindness in Dean that had caught Luke by surprise. Underneath the "in your face" attitude and wicked charm had been a maturity and thoughtfulness beyond anything Luke would have expected, and it had brought him up short. How often, he wondered, had he misjudged people by holding onto first impressions?_

_Luke caught the 2x4 when it dipped, the pitch of the saw's grind changing as it finished its cut. He set that piece to the side, reaching for the next board. Dean tossed the extra wood toward a pile of kindling in the corner. He took the end of the piece of lumber Luke lowered toward him, checking for the tick on the edge indicating where he should make the cut. Finding it, he eased the board into the blade, thumbing the trigger of the saw, ready to start._

"_You're a good judge of people, Dean," Luke said, looking at the young man across from him. "You see deeper into folks than most people – including yourself – give you credit for."_

_Dean's head came up. He was clearly uncertain what to do with Luke's statement and the implicit compliment. _

"_Thanks," he said hesitantly._

_Luke shrugged._

"_Just callin' it like I see it," he said easily. He checked his watch. "I figure we'll give it 15 more minutes. Sound good?"_

_Dean nodded, pressing the start button of the saw._

_xxxx_

"_OK, sweetpea, you got it?" Jo was holding a carefully measured cup of flour over a large mixing bowl. Macy, standing on a chair next to her, took the handle of the cup in two small hands._

"_Uh huh," she said, little tongue poking out as she held it._

"_Good girl," Jo said encouragingly. "Now, just dump it in."_

_Meticulously, Macy turned the cup over. She handed the utensil back to Jo._

"_Salt next." Jo put the cup into the sink, reaching for the teaspoons._

_Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sam standing in the doorway._

"_Hey, sweetheart," she said. Macy pirouetted in her chair._

"_Sam!"_

"_Hey, punkin." Sam dug a finger into the girl's tummy and she giggled._

"_Stop!"_

_Sam obeyed and stepped up close to Macy._

"_What are you making?"_

"_Gram's showing me how to make chocolate chip cookies, so we can take them in the car tomorrow when we go home!"_

"_Sweet," Sam said. _

_It was the day after Christmas and the family, including the Winchesters, would be dispersing the following morning. He peered into the bowl._

"_Are you making enough for Dean and me?" he asked._

_Jo slanted him a glance and a small smile. "What do you think?"_

_He grinned._

"_You can't help, Sam," Macy said suddenly. "Me and Gram are baking."_

"_Gram and I." Jo corrected her without thinking._

"_Gram and I are baking," Macy said carefully._

"_Honey, if Sam wants to help…"_

"_No," Macy said stubbornly. "I'm helping!"_

"_Macy…" Jo started._

"_It's OK, Jo." Sam cut in quickly. "I got to make cookies before Macy got here, right? It's Macy's turn." _

_Sam watched Macy and was pleased to see the slight pout fade._

"_You can watch, if you want," she conceded graciously._

_Sam moved to a corner of the kitchen, hitching up on the counter, stretching long legs out along the edge, careful to keep his feet off the flat surface._

_Jo raised an eyebrow at him, but Sam just grinned, not moving. She shook her head. _

_Both Winchester boys liked to sit on the counter at that corner spot, backs against the cabinets, watching her work, usually laughing. Michael and Jake had followed their lead and taken up residence there, too, when Sam or Dean weren't occupying the space. Tommy'd be up there soon, she knew, as soon as he was tall enough to make the hop without having to pull up a chair. _

_In theory, Jo had a problem with people sitting on her clean kitchen counters. _

_In theory._

_In practice? _

_When one of the boys was perched up there, sharing his day, keeping her company—she couldn't scold him for that. And they all knew it. _

_Sam settled in and Jo and Macy kept up their steady progress through the recipe. Occasionally, Sam reached over, sticking a finger in the bowl. Checking their work, he told Macy solemnly, as he put the finger in his mouth. She was doing an excellent job. The girl beamed. _

_Jo was not taken in and shook a spoon at him behind the child's back with a mock scowl. He widened his eyes at her, taking another taste when Macy asked him to check now, see if she'd added the chocolate chips right. In fact, she had. Sam was relieved. Macy was thrilled. _

_Jo was amused._

_After Macy had finished putting the cookies in the oven and been collected for her nap, Sam continued to sit on the kitchen counter, legs now dangling, using a finger to scrape out the last of the cookie dough from the mixing bowl. Jo cleaned up around him._

"_Macy's four, huh?" he asked, examining the interior of the bowl carefully for smudges of sweetness he may have missed._

"_Yeah, she is," Jo agreed, running a wet rag over the counter._

"_Dean was her age when our mom died." He said it casually, apparently just making an observation. He looked up at Jo, putting his finger in his mouth again._

"_Yes," she said somewhat cautiously._

"_It's funny to think of him being a little kid like that."_

"_Yes," she said again, watching him, not sure where, if anywhere, he was going with this._

_Sam hopped off the counter, moving around Jo to put the almost spotless bowl in the sink. He turned on the water and let it run._

"_It's weird, isn't it, that if Macy never saw us again, she might not remember us at all?" He squirted some soap into the bowl and started to swirl it around with a brush. He looked over at Jo. "But we'd always remember her, wouldn't we?"_

_He said it so surely, eyes meeting her with a certainty and sweetness that stole her breath. _

_Jo felt her throat close up, and she was frozen there, clutching a damp dish towel, tears starting into her eyes. _

_What was this sudden, awful ache that gripped her? _

_It was so many different things, rushing at her, overwhelming her—the idea of never seeing Macy again, of her love for that precious little girl being forgotten; the thought of Dean, four and bereft, slowly losing moments like these with his own mother; that knowledge of a mother's love for her babies, fading from the memory of a little boy who'd adored her, never known by the boy standing here in Jo's kitchen. _

_Jo swallowed hard, willing the tears away. _

"_Yes, we would," she said softly. "We'd always remember." She handed him the towel._

_Sam nodded thoughtfully, accepting the cloth and running it around the rim of the bowel. He finished drying the dish and bent down, opening the cupboard next to him and putting it away._

_He leaned back against the counter, eyes on the toes of his high-tops._

"_Even if she didn't remember, it wouldn't mean that we hadn't loved her, would it?" he said, thinking it through._

"_No, honey, it wouldn't. That love would be true, no matter what she remembered."_

_He nodded again, eyes still down._

_Moving close, Jo leaned against the counter next to him, her shoulder just brushing his arm. _

_She felt the sigh run through him._

"_You OK?" she asked._

"_Yeah," he said, quirking a small smile at her, an image of Dean in that brief moment. "Yeah, I'm fine."_

_xxxx_


	5. Chapter 5

_Frail, Chapter 5_

_xxxx_

It had taken Dean more than two hours to get Michael and Jacob out of the hospital and headed home.

Seeing Luke had had a devastating effect on both boys. They'd stood in shocked silence at his bedside, Jo explaining what she could of his condition, trying to soften the truth of Luke's prognosis. She'd been steady as a rock until she'd looked into Jake's face and been confronted by the identical expression he'd worn as an eight year old when she'd told him his parents were never coming home. Michael, standing at his brother's side, looked like he'd aged ten years, lines of grief and anger etching themselves into the skin around his mouth and eyes.

Gathering them into her arms, she held them as they'd wept. Dean stood for a moment, useless and awkward, until hesitantly, he'd moved forward, placing a light hand on Jo's back, gently guiding all three toward the couch in the corner of the room, easing them down onto it.

Michael's tears had stopped first, and he'd stood, leaving Jo to focus on his younger brother, wiping his own face before he went to sit next to his uncle, taking Luke's hand in his own. Jake, exhausted, cried himself to sleep.

Ultimately, Jo had handed Jake off to Michael, asking Dean to sit with the boys while she went to call Luke's children.

When she'd returned, they'd wakened Jake, and after some time and a hushed, heated argument, the boys had agreed to go home. Tommy would need them after Dean broke the news to the youngest boy. Just thinking about that conversation made Dean's chest and throat ache.

The sun was up as they trudged out to the car, and Dean pulled out his cell phone. Sam was going to give him hell for not having called before, but between the stress of the situation and the hospital's restrictions on cell phone usage, he just hadn't had the chance. Every time he'd thought about it something had come up or he'd been in a place where he couldn't risk making the call.

Dean frowned when he got Sam's voicemail. _Of course._

He thumbed through his numbers until he got to the house phone. He dialed.

Answering machine.

_You've got to be kidding me._

Michael looked at Dean with dull eyes. "Can't you get them?"

Dean shook his head. He put the phone in his pocket as he reached for the car handle.

"We'll be there in a little while anyway," he said tiredly.

Later he'd wonder what the hell had been wrong with him.

xxxx

The pain in Sam's head brought him back to awareness. He was in a small space, hands bound behind him, feet tied, knees bent almost to his chest. Wherever he was vibrated around him, and Sam slowly realized that the thrumming sound he could hear was wheels on a road. He closed his eyes, fighting the pounding ache against the back of his eyes. _What the hell…?_

Sam startled at the brush of something against his hands and his eyes flew open. He heard a soft sound behind him, and his heart jumped into his throat.

"Tommy?" Sam couldn't control the catch in voice.

"Sam." Tommy's voice broke on a sob. There was scuffling as the boy scrambled closer, pressing himself tightly to Sam.

_Nonononono._

"Hey, buddy," Sam forced himself to be steady. _What had happened?_ "Are you OK?" He remembered the shock of force against his chest, Tommy's scream. "Are you hurt?" Suddenly urgent.

"He hit me," came the wavering reply.

Sam was unprepared for the surge of rage that spiked through his body at the fear and bewilderment in the boy's voice. _God DAMN it!_ Even as he felt the adrenaline rush send blood pounding into his ears, Sam struggled to keep himself in check. Exploding would not do any good, and would only frighten Tommy further. Jaw clenched, Sam swallowed his anger, making himself think instead of react. _How had they gotten here? _A man standing in front of him on the porch. Black eyes. Pain.

"Sam?" Tommy shifted again, seeking reassurance, the silence making him anxious.

Sam swallowed a growing fear. "Yeah. I'm sorry, kiddo." He spoke as gently as he could. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"

Sam could feel the shake of the boy's head between his shoulder blades.

"Sam. He… " Tommy's voice broke. "He hurt you. You weren't moving. I…"

"Hey, hey, hey." Sam soothed. "It's OK, Tommy. I'm OK. You don't need to worry, alright?"

He heard a sharp sniff behind him and felt dampness through the thin cotton of his t-shirt.

"Are you sure?" Doubt.

"Yeah, I'm sure, buddy. I've got a hard head. Or didn't you know that?" he teased lightly.

There was an unsteady huff of an almost laugh against his shoulder. "Yeah."

Sam smiled in response, but he also was fighting back a rolling feeling of nausea. His hard head hurt like hell.

"Tommy, are your hands tied?" he whispered, squeezing his eyes tight against the pain.

"Yes."

"Are they behind you or in front of you?"

"In front of me?" Tommy wasn't sure the point of the questions.

_Thank you._

"Can you reach my hands, kiddo?"

There was awkward movement behind him, and Sam felt small fingers touch his own.

"Good," he said encouragingly, squeezing gently. "Can you untie me?"

The fingers moved from his hands to his wrists, and Sam could feel them testing the knots. He forced himself to be calm while Tommy worked. He _had_ to be free by the time they got wherever they were going, and that urgency made Sam's nerves jump. But he knew that Tommy would read that anxiety if he wasn't careful, so he took an unsteady breath, trying to be patient.

The intake of air, however, awakened a searing pain in his chest. Sam grimaced with the realization that ribs were broken, knowing that would have an effect on his ability defend Tommy and himself. He did a quick mental inventory of his injuries, and his conclusion, while not life threatening, was still depressing—cracked ribs, blinding headache, pain everywhere. Barefoot.

_Shit. Shitshitshitshit._

"Sam?" Tommy had been working on the knots, not making much progress. Sam flexed his wrists experimentally. A little looser? He wasn't sure.

"Sam, I can't…" There were tears of frustration in the young voice.

"It's OK, buddy," Sam said, "just keep trying. You're not going to hurt me. Pull as hard as you need to."

Even as he said it, Sam cringed slightly when a fingernail bit into his wrist, the tugs on the ropes increasing in pressure and friction as Tommy fumbled with the binding.

"You're doing good," he encouraged. But it was taking too long. Tommy just didn't have the strength or the dexterity to free him. Not with his own hands tied.

"Kiddo, stop." The pulls increased, Tommy's desperate concentration on his task keeping him from hearing Sam's command.

"Tommy, stop." Sam said it again, and the movement ceased.

"I'm sorry," Tommy mumbled, almost on a sob. "I can't …"

"You did fine," Sam said softly. "You did great. I think you got the ropes loose enough …" He trailed off, pulling at the ties around his wrists. "Can you get your wrists close to my hands? Let me see if I can get you…"

Sam felt the ropes on Tommy's wrists brush against his fingers.

"That's my boy," he said, feeling around the ropes.

Sam found the knot and began to work at it, rough in his haste. He hated it, but Sam knew he couldn't afford to be gentle. Tommy inhaled sharply a couple of times, but didn't complain. Finally, Sam felt the knot give way, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

"There," he said, more loudly than he'd intended. "Now…"

Without warning, both boys were hurled toward the front of the car, Sam rolling over Tommy, who cried out as Sam's full weight landed on top of him. Just as abruptly, the car rocked to a halt, throwing them at the back of the car, Sam colliding heavily with the rear of the trunk.

A door slammed and quick footsteps approached.

Sam groaned against the pain that had flared in his head and his chest at the abuse, but he managed to grind out, "Keep your hands together, Tommy, don't …"

Keys in the lock, and the trunk lid flung open.

Sam shifted, partially sitting up, shielding Tommy.

"No talking!" Gene Potter screamed. His gaze was clear, the inky black that had been there earlier gone, but he was wild-eyed, body burnished a dull red by the tail-lights of the car. The sun was coming up, the gray mist of the dawn making the world outside seem hazy and unreal.

Sam opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off abruptly when a fist connected solidly with his jaw, dropping him unceremoniously back onto the floor of the trunk. He struggled to stay conscious, dimly aware of Tommy crying out, but the second blow, landing on his cheek bone, sparked stars across his vision before everything went dark. Again.

xxxx

The first thing Dean had noticed was that the front door was open. He'd just stared at it as they rolled down the drive. _That's odd._

An overturned flower pot lay at the bottom of the steps, its contents—dirt and pansies—littered the walk.

_Sam hadn't answered the phone._

A surge of visceral panic had his heart leaping into his throat.

Stepping hard on the gas, Dean accelerated toward the porch, the lurch forward jarring the two boys in the car out of the dazes they'd fallen into on the drive home. He didn't respond to their sharp cries, focused on getting to the house as quickly as possible. He reached the house and slamming on the brakes, threw the Suburban into park, flinging open the door before the car had come to a complete stop.

"Dean!" Michael and Jacob called, confused.

Racing to the house, Dean sprinted up the steps.

"Sam!" he yelled.

He skidded into the front hall, eyes taking in cracked wood around the door into the family room, blood on the floor, destruction everywhere – broken wood and glass and feathers and fabric scattered across the hardwood.

"Sammy!"

Frantic motion through the first floor of the house and then back to the front, rounding the corner toward the stairs, Michael and Jacob, frozen at the door. Dean didn't pause, hurling himself upstairs.

"Tommy!"

That word had the younger boys pounding after Dean, breaking them out of the stupor they'd sunk into over the last few hours.

Nothing.

No one.

They were gone.

xxxx

"Sam?" Gradually, Sam became aware of a voice, soft and desperate. "Sam. Please. Please wake up. Please." He recognized the terror. "Sam, please."

Sam fought his way back to consciousness, the agony in his head threatening to drag him under again.

"Tommy," he whispered, but no real sound came out.

He was still tied up, but in a different position. His arms were now secured over his head, and he could feel a rough wall at his back.

This couldn't be good.

Painfully, Sam opened his eyes, trying to adjust to the dim light around him. They were no longer in the car, but in some sort of building he guessed. It was a room anyway. He couldn't make out the walls, but there was a diffused light coming from somewhere beyond his vision. Across from him he could see Tommy's shadowed form.

"Hey, kiddo," he rasped.

"Sam!" Tommy's gasp of relief was hiccup.

Sam grinned lopsidedly at the boy, not sure if Tommy could see him, but trying to reassure as best he could.

"You okay?" Sam asked roughly.

"Yes," Tommy choked out.

"Yeah?" Sam asked. "Are you sure? He didn't hurt you?"

"No," he said hesitantly.

Sam paused, trying to get his bearings. _What the hell was going on?_ The pain in his head seemed to have increased during the time he'd been unconscious, making it difficult to think clearly. He had to pull it together. He knew Dean would be on his way; that was never a question. But he also knew he needed to get Tommy out of danger as quickly as possible. _Focus_, he thought desperately. He drew in a breath.

"Tommy, did he say anything to you? Tell you why he took us?"

Even from where he was, eyes adjusting to the gray dark, Sam could see the shudder that shook the boy's sturdy frame.

"No. He didn't really say anything. Just yelled and … said weird things. I didn't understand…"

He hesitated, looking off to Sam's left.

"It was Mr. Potter. But… he was different." Tommy turned uncertain eyes to Sam. He knew something was wrong, but he didn't know what it was.

"Yeah," Sam said tiredly. He didn't think it was Gene Potter anymore either.

xxxx

Matt and a second deputy, Doug Seewald, moved around the house collecting evidence and taking notes.

When he'd realized Sam and Tommy were gone, Dean had hesitated briefly before calling Matt. He'd known there wasn't anything the other man could do, but having the deputy out to the house would give Dean an opportunity to question the man again with a different perspective on what had happened the night before. It was clear to Dean now that Potter's aberrant behavior was supernaturally induced. And he suspected that he was dealing with some sort of demonic possession.

Dean didn't want anyone getting in his way, but he needed information, and Matt was the one who would have it.

Following his conversation with Matt, Dean had called to Jo. Or, more accurately, he'd called Rich. He'd been torn in about five different directions about telling Jo. The biggest temptation had been not to let her know at all—just take care of things and fill her in when Tommy was safe. Because he was going to be safe. He and Sam were both going to safe. But more thoughtful reflection revealed the flaws in that plan – primarily, he'd had to tell Matt. And if you told one person in this town, you told them all, no matter what everyone's best intentions might be.

Once he'd decided Jo had to be told, the question became how to tell her. He didn't have the time to drive back to the hospital to break the news in person, but telling her that Sam and Tommy had been kidnapped by a possessed murderer over the phone seemed wrong as well. So, he'd called Rich.

There'd been stunned silence on the other end of the phone.

"Rich, I don't know what to do." Dean had hated admitting that fact, but it was the truth. "Should I tell her? Would it be better if she hears it from you?"

"Dean." Rich's voice had been rough. "Give me a second, OK? I need…"

Dean had stilled on the line, letting other the man collect himself.

"You need to tell her," the pastor said finally. "I'll be here, but I think it needs to come from you. You're the one who's there and can, at least, try to answer any questions she has." He'd spoken slowly, trying to gauge Dean's reaction.

"Yeah," Dean had agreed automatically. "Yeah, OK."

So, Dean had spoken with Jo, telling her everything he knew and suspected that he knew. She'd been eerily calm, asking to speak with Michael and Jake.

When the boys had given the phone back to Dean, he'd been startled by the dream-like quality of her voice.

"I don't know what to do, Dean," she'd said. After a fairly long moment, she asked, "Would I be any help there?"

"I don't think so," he'd said gently. "Matt needs to talk to me and the boys, I guess, but there's nothing we can say, I think, that will help him." He wanted her to stay away. He'd send Michael and Jake to her as soon as he could.

"I think you should stay there," he suggested softly. "I'll take care of things here, OK?"

"I know," she said. "Thank you." There was another silence.

"You'll call me, if …. I…" Her voice trailed away. "I don't know what to do, Dean."

"I don't know what to do except pray," she finally finished.

Dean swallowed with difficulty.

"It'll be OK, Jo," he said, voice shaking. He cleared his throat. "I promise it'll be OK."

Numb, Michael and Jake sat at the kitchen table, watching him wordlessly as he finished.

"Dean?" Michael said as the older man hung up the phone. "What…"

Dean held up a hand, sinking into a chair.

"Just…" he said hoarsely. "Just give me a second."

Obedient now to the slightest command, Michael subsided, eyes intent on the man across from him.

He needed just a moment to recover from his conversation with Jo and get his mind into hunting mode. He couldn't afford to be distracted right now. He had to be able to put all his resources toward getting his brother and Tommy back.

Dean scrubbed both hands over the top of his head, resting his elbows on his knees. _Focus._

It had to be Gene Potter. It had to be. It couldn't be a coincidence that only hours after Luke had been attacked, the house had been ransacked and Sam and Tommy taken. How could he have been so _blind _to the signs that seemed so clear to him now?

_How could I not have been prepared for this?_

He looked around the room—the familiar, homey kitchen, the boys, bewildered, but innocent, untouched (until now) by the world he and Sam usually inhabited.

_Because of this... because here I thought we were safe._

This was why Dad had kept them moving when they were young, he realized suddenly with a grim certainty. Never let them grow attached to a particular spot.

Because the minute a place became home, you let your guard down.

And this was home.

They'd come to Jo's because of his dream, because they'd been afraid for her and the boys. But once they'd gotten here and not found what they'd been dreading, seen no sign of its presence, they'd relaxed again, letting themselves be lulled into thinking that they could have normal; that here, at least, they were protected from the things they hunted, that hunted them.

Dean should have known better.

"Is it the demon?"

Dean raised his eyes to look at Michael.

"I don't know. I don't think so."

Jacob's eyes went from Michael to Jacob, uncomprehending. But he didn't say anything.

Dean continued, voice pitched low so they wouldn't be overheard. "But I don't think it's Gene Potter, either." He sighed. "When I was talking to Matt about what happened yesterday, he said that Potter felt 'off' when he and Luke were out there. Matt didn't think whatever was going on was normal, but he didn't know what it could be. He couldn't know." Dean stopped.

"But, I should have," he continued roughly. "I should have realized…"

"Dean." Matt stood in the doorway into the kitchen. He was grimfaced and pale, dark circles bruising the skin under his eyes.

"I know that y'all didn't see anything, but I need to talk to the kids…"

Dean nodded, standing up, pulling his chair out for Matt.

"Sit there," he said. "I'll get us something to eat."

Matt opened his mouth to protest, but Dean was already at the cabinets, pulling down plates—not just for the deputy, but for himself and Michael and Jake, as well.

There wasn't much for any of the three of them to add to what Matt and the other officer had found in the house, so the interview had ended quickly. The other deputy had joined them in the kitchen, and Dean had added eggs to the skillet as he scrambled. He was vibrating with the need to take action, but he couldn't go completely blind; he needed to know whatever Matt knew.

"I've called in the APB on Potter's car." Doug was even younger than Matt and while both men were calm and determined, Dean knew they were out of their depth.

"Where would he go?"

Matt had finished with the boys, and addressed the question to his colleague. Dean put five plates out on the table, grabbing a handful of silverware from the drawer, checking on the eggs, stirring them briefly. Michael had started coffee, and was putting mugs down to each of the men at the table. He filled two glasses with orange juice for himself and Jake.

"Does he hunt?" Doug held his mug out for coffee as Michael came around.

"Yeah, but I know they don't have a place. He goes out to Grant's lease with him. There's nothing there."

Scooping eggs out of the skillet, Dean saw Michael's brow furrow momentarily. The boy looked over at his brother. But Jake wasn't paying attention to Michael, hunched in his chair, staring unseeing at his glass of OJ. Dean dumped eggs on the boy's plate and gave him a gentle nudge.

"Eat," he said softly. Jake obeyed.

Dean caught Michael's eye. The teenager opened his mouth, but shut it again on Dean's look. Uncertain, Michael looked at Matt and back at Dean. _But…_

"What about family?" Doug tried again.

"There's no one as far as I know, but we'll check." Matt made a note on his pad.

Matt and Doug wolfed down their food and gulped the coffee, pushing back their chairs after about five minutes.

"We're headed out." Matt ran a hand over his haggard face before he crouched down next to Jake.

"We'll find 'em, OK? Tommy's going to be fine." He put a hand on Jake's shoulder, giving a light squeeze. The boy nodded. Primarily because it was expected, Dean thought.

"We'll be in touch. Let us know if you think of anything else."

Dean walked the two men out to the car, asking some follow up questions that confirmed for him the fact that they didn't know anything that would be helpful. Lifting a hand, he watched as they drove off.

When he reentered the house, Michael was waiting for him.

"Why didn't you want me to say anything in front of Matt?"

Dean moved past him.

"Because I don't want them involved in this. What were you going to say?"

Michael frowned at Dean, trailing after him toward the kitchen.

"Jake and I saw Mr. Potter a few weeks ago out at the Millers' old place."

"Where is that?"

"A few miles northwest from here."

"Is it accessible by car?"

Dean had gone into the kitchen and was clearing off the table. He needed to be doing something.

"Yeah. There's an old track, but it's pretty overgrown."

"Was Potter in a car?"

"Yes." Jake joined in the conversation. "I saw it around back as we were cutting across."

"Did he see you?"

"No." Jake looked at Michael. "I don't think so."

"Can you give me directions on how to get there?"

Michael and Jake exchanged glances.

"Yeah," said Michael hesitantly. "I've been out there a couple of times with Luke to check on things."

"What are you going to do?" Jake asked.

"I'm going to go see if they're out there."

"I'm going with you," Michael said.

"No. You're not." Dean walked past him again, aiming for his and Sam's room. "Take the Suburban and your brother and go sit with your aunt."

Michael hurried after the older man, Jake on his heels.

"No."

"You're not going."

"The hell I'm not."

"I don't have time for this," Dean said tightly.

"What if it's more than just Mr. Potter?" Michael persisted. "Can you take on more than one person and still get Sam and Tommy to safety?" He paused. "What if they're hurt? What if they can't get out on their own? Can you carry them both?"

Dean ground his teeth in frustration, seething at the questions. Because Michael was right.

"You think he's possessed, don't you? Maybe not by the demon that killed your mom, but by a demon. Right?" Michael continued on. "What does that mean? If he's not a regular man? Can you just … shoot him? What…?"

The boy's questions became less demanding, more hesitant. He didn't know the answers. He wanted to know what the significance was of Potter's possession in rescuing his brother.

"What do you mean 'possessed'?"

Jake's question, unsteady with confusion, propelled Dean further into the room. He yanked one of Sam's bags out from under the bed.

"I think Potter's possessed by a demon." Dean wouldn't look at Jake, hating that the kid had to know this, missed the glaze of shock over the boy's face as Dean rooted around in the duffel bag.

"Michael?" Jake's eyes sought his brother.

"Yeah." Michael said it uneasily.

"I don't…"

"I don't have time for this." Dean said it again, frustration making his voice rise.

A worry bordering on terror for his brother and Tommy, combined with guilt and a seething rage were giving a frantic edge to Dean's thoughts and actions that he knew was putting him in danger of losing complete control of the situation.

Carefully, deliberately Dean took a steadying breath, hardening his tone, controlling his voice. "Do you understand that I don't have time to discuss this with you?"

Michael and Jake stood like statues, frozen in the face of Dean's obvious agitation, frightened. The three stared at each other.

Dean glanced away first, resuming his search of Sam's bag, grunting in satisfaction when he found what he was looking for. He pulled out the large book Bobby had given them before he and Sam had gone after their father several months ago.

He tossed the bag on to the floor and sat on the bed, flipping through the pages, sure that he remembered something that might be useful on this hunt. The boys inched forward until they were standing in front of him. Neither said a word.

"Here," he muttered to himself. He scanned the page quickly, frowning slightly at the turn of phrase in the spell. Putting the book down on the bed, still open, Dean rose and went to his own duffel, rooting through it until he found his father's journal. He knew what he wanted this time, turning smoothly to the appropriate entry as he strode back to the bed.

Michael took a step back from where he'd advanced after Dean had stood up. He'd been reading the entry in Bobby's book. His eyes, when they met Dean's were wary, but curious.

"Do you have all this stuff?"

Dean nodded abruptly, bumping Michael a little further away as he sat back down on the bed. He skimmed the ritual in the journal, checking something against Bobby's book. He ran a slightly unsteady hand over his face, biting his lip as he tried to think through the plan that was forming in his head.

There was no way to avoid it if he was going to use both the binding spell and the exorcism ritual—he wasn't going to be able to do it on his own.

He would need the boys.

Heart heavy, Dean raised his eyes to the boys standing across from him.

"If you go with me," he said finally, "you're going to have to do exactly what I say, when I say it. Do you understand me? No questions."

He looked first at Michael. "Are we clear?"

The boy nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Jake?"

Michael blinked.

"No."

The younger boy, who was still clearly reeling, nodded jerkily even as his older brother answered out loud.

Dean looked at Michael.

"He's not going."

"Michael." Dean said it gently, but there was no yielding.

"No."

Jake's eyes went from his brother to Dean and back again.

"Michael," Jake's voice was unfamiliarly hesitant.

Both Dean and Michael ignored him.

"Michael, I don't want him there any more than I want you there. But I can't do this without both of you."

"He can't go. He's just a kid."

"Michael…" Jake tried to interrupt.

"You think I don't know that," Dean gritted. "You're both just kids. I don't want _either_ of you, but I can't do it on my own."

"Dean…" Jake again, ignored.

"Michael, listen to me." Dean could feel his impatience seething just under the surface, but he knew that he was going to have to convince Michael if he was going to get both of the boys on board. He hated that he was going to put these two kids that he loved in danger, but he didn't know how else to save his brother and theirs.

"There are two things that have to be done to neutralize Potter, and I can't do both of them and take care of Sam and Tommy. I need the two of you to get them loose and safe while I get rid of this demon. I can't do this by myself, Michael. I can't. And Tommy and Sam are going to die if we don't do this."

Michael swallowed hard, tears standing in his eyes. "Dean," he whispered.

"It'll be OK," Dean said roughly. "Nothing will happen to him."

They turned to Jake, who was watching them, eyes narrowed.

"Are you done making decisions for me?" he asked, eyes flashing.

"Yeah," Dean said calmly. "We are." He paused, eyes fixed on Jake's. "Do you understand what I said? What I tell you, when I tell you."

"I get it," he said brusquely.

"Jake." Michael was impatient and angry at his brother's tone.

The boy started to roll his eyes, but Dean grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him sharply.

"Goddamn it, Jake, we're not screwing around here." Dean put his face right into Jake's, taking the boy's chin in his hand. "What. I tell you. When. I tell you. Or your little brother and mine will die."

Face ashen, Jake nodded. "Yes. Yes, sir. I understand."

xxxx


	6. Chapter 6

_Frail, Chapter 6_

_xxxx_

Ticket stub.

_Flick._

Library card.

_Sam looked at it and considered._

_Flick._

Frequent coffee buyer card.

_Flick._

Receipt.

_Flick._

_Sam sat on the bed going through his wallet, tossing scraps of paper into a near-by trash can._

Ticket stub.

_Flick._

In Case of Emergency.

_He studied it. Dean's cell. Dad's cell. At least the last number they had for their father. From the time the boys had been able to leave the house, John had been fanatical about their keeping current contact information on them. Just in case. _

_Sam pulled out a pen. He hesitated for a minute, spinning the ballpoint around his thumb. Finally he put the battered card on the table and scratched through his father's name and number. Reaching for his cell phone, Sam scrolled through the numbers. He paused again._

_Jo Sweed. 863-555-4235._

_Feeling a little self-conscious, Sam wrote it down._

_He put the card back into his wallet._

"_Hey, Dean. Give me your billfold." _

_Without taking his eyes off the television screen, Dean lifted a hip and dug into his back pocket._

"_What do you want it for?"_

"_Updating contact info."_

_Dean tossed the requested item to his brother._

"_When did you get a new number?"_

"_I didn't."_

_Sam shuffled through the cards and bits of trash in Dean's wallet. Pulling out the appropriate yellowed piece of paper, Sam marked through the distinctive scrawl of his brother's handwriting. Carefully, he made the change._

_Slipping everything back into the black leather wallet, Sam closed it and tossed it back to Dean._

_Frowning curiously, Dean opened it again and found the card he was looking for. When he noted the difference, he glanced over at Sam, who was watching his brother closely. After a moment, Dean nodded. He returned the card to its place, shoved the billfold back into his pocket and returned his attention to the television._

_xxxx_

"_May I please speak to Jo Sweed?"_

"_This is she." Jo had grabbed the phone as she was making lunches for the boys and Luke._

"_I'm calling about Dean and Sam Winchester."_

_Jo dropped an apple in one of the bags and turned her entire attention to the voice on the other end of the telephone._

"_Excuse me?"_

"_Dean Winchester? Sam Winchester?" The voice sounded impatient and frustrated. "This was the number on both their emergency contact cards."_

"_Emergency?" Jo put a hand over the ear that wasn't covered by the phone as her family thundered into the kitchen. "Are they OK? What happened?"_

"_There's been an accident. Are you related to the victims?"_

_Victims? Jo felt her heart start to pound in her chest_

"_Yes." Jo raised her voice to be heard over the noise around her. "I'm their aunt." The lie rolled off her tongue and out of her mouth before she even thought about it. "Where are you? What's the address?"_

_Jo copied down the information hurriedly. She tried to question the man further, but all he would tell her was that it was serious and she should hurry._

_She put down the phone, hand shaking slightly. She hadn't noticed the silence, but when she turned, four pairs of eyes were watching her intently._

"_It's Sam and Dean. They've been in an accident." Her eyes went to Luke. He nodded, holding out his hand for the scrap of paper. _

"_I'll take care of it," he said. _

"_Are they OK?" Michael asked it for all of the boys._

"_I don't know, sweetie," she said uncertainly. "Luke and I are going to Missouri where they are. Can you three look out for yourselves for a few days?"_

_They nodded._

"_I'll have Marge keep an eye on the motel."_

_xxxx_

_The woman at the information desk told them there were three Winchesters admitted to the hospital – two in critical care and one for overnight observation. With Dean in CCU and Sam checked in for observation, Jo and Luke gambled that they'd find both boys in the CCU. _

_They did._

"_Jo?"_

_She and Luke had only a brief moment to take in the scene before Sam noticed them. Sam had been hunched in a chair next to his brother, and he sat up awkwardly from the slouch he'd sunk into. Dean was motionless in the bed, eyes closed, tubes and wires connecting him to a phalanx of machines around him. Jo thought it might have been her slight gasp that caused Sam's head to come up. _

"_Sam." She crossed the distance between them quickly, hugging him tightly. Startled by her sudden appearance, Sam returned the embrace in a daze, reaching out from around her to shake Luke's hand at the same time._

"_What are you guys doing here?" _

_She pulled back, taking his hand in hers, even as her eyes strayed to the figure in the bed. _

"_Did y'all put me down as your emergency contact?" she asked softly, eyes returning to Sam._

_He blinked at her. "Oh. I forgot. I…" He looked at Luke. "I'm sorry," he said, voice breaking suddenly. "You didn't…"_

_Luke reached out a hand and placed it on Sam's shoulder. "Don't, Sam. It's OK."_

_Sam swallowed, his eyes going to Dean._

"_How is he?" Jo asked._

_Sam shook his head again. "I'm not sure," he whispered. "He was in surgery, and …. I know they've told me, but I can't… I don't …." He said it uneasily. "My head hurts so bad, I just…"_

"_Come on, baby," she said guiding him to a chair a little removed from the bed. "Can you tell me what happened?" She drew him down into the seat, sitting next to him._

_Even as she asked the question, Jo's attention wandered to the still form of Dean in the bed. She watched Luke move to Dean's side. Her husband put one hand on Dean's forehead and the other on his hand._

"_Hey, bud," she heard him whisper._

_Sam swallowed convulsively, watching the same scene she was. He dragged his eyes back to hers._

"_I was driving, and Dad and I were having a fight." The look on his face was tragic. "I didn't see the truck… It was just suddenly there, and…" The grip on Jo's hands tightened painfully. "It hit Dad's side of the car, and I …" _

_He started to shake, tremors wracking his entire body. _

"_Dean…" He couldn't continue. He opened his mouth, but no sound would come._

_Jo pulled him into her arms. She closed her eyes, holding him tightly for a long moment until the trembling stilled. He didn't pull back, and she didn't let go. His head shifted, and she felt him rest his cheek on her shoulder. A huge sigh shuddered through him, but still he didn't move away. She slid her fingers through his hair, giving him some time._

"_Thank you for coming," he said, voice small._

"_We wouldn't be anywhere else."_

_She felt the breath hitch in his chest and he turned his head again, pressing his face into her neck. He nodded against her, and she continued the steady stroking of his head. "It'll be OK, sweetheart. It'll be OK."_

_Finally, Sam sat back, shifting so that he was facing his brother. They sat in silence for awhile, Jo maintaining a gentle grasp of Sam's hand, thumb making soft circles on its back. _

"_Do you know where the doctor is, honey?" she finally asked softly._

_Sam shook his head. "He was here, but…" He looked around the room distractedly as if he expected the man to be there somewhere, maybe hiding._

_Jo frowned, beginning to be concerned about Sam's disorientation._

"_Honey…"_

"_There should only be one visitor at a time." A young woman in nurses' scrubs stood on the threshold of the room, disapproving._

_Sam started to speak, but Jo beat him to it, standing and crossing the room, hand outheld, a pleasant, but determined smile on her face._

"_I'm Josephine Sweed, Dean's aunt. I'd like to talk to the doctor."_

_Sam's eyes went to Luke, who had turned when the woman entered the room. Luke winked at Sam. _Watch this.

"_I'm afraid Dr. Monroe isn't available…," the nurse started._

"_Would you page him, please?" Jo interrupted._

"_He's…"_

"_My husband and I just traveled over 12 hours to get here, and we'd like to know what the situation is with our nephew."_

"_Dr. Monroe…"_

"_If you'd rather not interrupt whatever he's doing, I'll be happy to call him myself." Jo had started toward the door. "I'm assuming there's someone at the nurses' station who can tell me how to get in touch with him."_

"_Wait, I…."_

"_Or will the hospital administrator be able to provide me with that information? I'm sure that …"_

"_Wait! Please. I'll call him. He's trying to catch up on some paper work, but he can probably take a break." _

"_Thank you so much," Jo said sincerely. "It's been a long day, and we're just so worried."_

_The nurse nodded, a tight smile on her face. She had the measure of the woman in front of her, and she adjusted her expectations of dealing with this particular patient and his family accordingly._

"_I'll be right back."_

"_Thank you," Jo repeated. She turned to the bed. Luke was shaking his head at her._

"_What?"_

"_Nothing."_

_She moved close to Dean, reaching out a hand to touch his face. _

"_Hey, sweetie," she said, laying the backs of her fingers against his cheek. He was so still. _

_Looking at him, motionless in the bed, Jo swallowed back an almost overwhelming sense of panic. The paleness of his skin made both the bruises and the freckles on his face stand out in stark relief; his dark lashes, childlike in their length and thickness, lay in damp half-circles against his cheeks, adding a vulnerability to his young face that made Jo's heart tighten in her chest. _

"_Oh, baby…"_

"_Mrs. Winchester?" A deep voice behind her._

_She turned._

"_Sweed," she said softly. "I'm… their mother's sister." The lie was not unthinking this time and it stuck a little, but she was afraid to let it go._

"_Mrs. Sweed, then. I'm sorry. I'm Dr. Monroe."_

_He held out a hand to her and she took it. "This is my husband, Luke. And I guess you've met Sam?" She wasn't actually sure that he had._

"_Mr. Sweed." The doctor nodded at Sam, who had stood uncertainly, blinking at the man from his place by the chairs. "Sam, yes, we've met briefly."_

"_Could you please tell us how Dean is?" Luke stepped up to Jo's side, putting an arm around her. _

_The doctor picked up Dean's chart, and flipped through it hurriedly. He frowned at something he saw and then nodded, as if in remembrance._

"_Yes, of course." He started to address just Luke and Jo, but Luke indicated Sam with a motion of his head._

"_Maybe we could talk over here where Sam can join us. And sit down," he added with a look at that young man. Gratefully, Sam sank back into the chair, the others standing close._

_Jo looked at Sam in concern. "And doctor, maybe someone should look at Sam again. I'm worried that he's not…"_

_The doctor frowned slightly as his attention turned to Sam. He pulled a small flashlight out of his pocket and shined it briefly in Sam's eyes, asking several brief questions about the accident and the treatment he'd received, nodding at Sam's responses, and feeling his pulse._

"_I'll double-check his chart when we're done here, but I suspect it's a slight concussion plus some badly bruised ribs and a certain amount of shock from being banged around like he was after that truck hit them. Sam, did they give you any prescriptions?"_

_Nodding, Sam fumbled in the breast pocket of the scrub shirt he was wearing and produced two slips of papers for the doctor._

_The doctor gave a soft grunt as he glanced at the scripts. "Yeah." He looked at Jo sympathetically. "I know he seems kind of out of it right now. And he is. But he's hurting pretty bad and he's exhausted and until he gets some rest, he's going to be a little spacey." He held the prescriptions out to Sam, but Luke intervened, taking the pieces of paper and putting them in his own pocket._

"_Why don't I keep those?" he asked._

_Mollified, Jo reached out to smooth Sam's hair. "OK. Thank you, doctor," she said as she sat down again at Sam's side._

"_Now, Dean." The doctor sighed. "He also has a concussion – more serious than Sam's – broken ribs and a broken arm. What's of most concern, frankly, is the internal damage to his lungs and other organs."_

"_His heart?" Jo asked somewhat breathlessly, hand tightening on Sam's._

"_No," the doctor said hesitantly. "His heart's actually in pretty good shape. Mostly it's his lungs and the lower organs. There's trauma there that's difficult to explain given the type of accident he was in."_

_Luke shook his head. "I don't…"_

"_What we repaired during surgery is inconsistent with what we usually see in automobile accidents. It was almost as if his organs had been, well, shredded. With the type of blunt force trauma associated with accidents, there will be deep bruising, sometimes the bursting of an organ due to force, but this…" He shook his head. "Nobody had seen anything like it before."_

_Out of the corner of her eye, Jo saw Sam sway in his chair, face draining of what little color had been there before._

"_Honey," she started, concern sharpening her movement toward him._

_He shook his head almost imperceptibly, focused on the doctor._

"_Could you fix him?" he asked hoarsely._

_The doctor, who had been addressing himself to Jo and Luke, turned to the younger man almost as if he were surprised to hear him speak._

"_Yes," he said slowly, voice gentling. "It was touch and go there for a little while, I'm not going to lie to you; primarily because we weren't prepared for the type of damage we were facing, but we think we caught all the bleeders, and repaired the gashes. The fact that he's stabilized so quickly is a good sign. Of course, we're going to be keeping a close eye on him, too."_

_Sam nodded, eyes going to Dean in the bed. "God," he said so lowly Jo almost didn't hear it, tears beginning to track down his cheeks. _

_Luke and Jo exchanged startled, concerned glances with the doctor. _

_It was normal to be upset and unsteady after an accident, especially one that might have taken the life of your brother. Jo would never have expected Sam to be stoic or unemotional in the face of Dean's condition. Never. _

_But this. This … fragility. This … brokenness. _

_It was disturbing Jo in a way she couldn't describe._

_The doctor seemed unsettled as well._

"_Maybe it would be best to let Sam get some rest. Do you have a place? I can recommend a hotel close to the hospital…"_

_Luke nodded. "That would be helpful. I…"_

"_My dad?" Sam seemed unaware of the conversation happening about him._

"_I'm not sure about your father. Let me…" The doctor winced suddenly and fumbled in his pockets. He pulled out a PDA. "Crap. I keep forgetting we've got this…"_

_He pulled out the stylus, scribbling and tapping on the screen._

"_Here. John Winchester, right?"_

_Sam nodded._

"_Concussion, broken right arm and ribs, cracked collar bone, collapsed lung." He frowned. "Bullet in his thigh."_

"_We were hunting," Sam said tightly._

_The doctor watched Sam expressionlessly for a moment before he shrugged slightly. Evidently not his concern._

_The doctor messed with the little device some more._

"_Here's Sam. Yeah. Nothing different from what we discussed earlier." He stood._

"_I'll be checking in." He held out his hand, shaking Jo's, then Luke's. He nodded his head at Sam. "You should let him get some rest."_

_xxxx_

_Luke pushed the door to the motel room open and turned to check on his charge. Sam had followed him from the car and was standing behind Luke, tall frame held rigid against the pain in his battered body. Luke stepped to the side, reaching for Sam's arm, gently guiding him into the room._

"_Here you go, buddy." He led the younger man to the far bed, and Sam sat without being told. He was upright for two long seconds before he did a controlled topple onto the pillow, slowly drawing his legs up onto the bed. He curled onto his side without saying a word._

_Luke decided to give Sam a couple of minutes and bring in luggage and the bags from the pharmacy they'd stopped at briefly before heading to the motel the doctor had recommended. _

_While Sam had waited in the car, Luke had ordered Sam's prescriptions, tossing a couple of packages of undershirts and boxers into the basket as he'd waited for the painkillers and antibiotics. Sam had been wearing a pair of surgical scrubs that had replaced the bloodied jeans and t-shirts the hospital staff had stripped him of when they were examining the boy after the accident, so Luke had grabbed a couple of long-sleeve tees off a rack and a pair of sweatpants that looked long enough to cover the kid's beanpole legs. He'd thrown toothbrushes and toothpaste and soap and shampoo for both of the boys in the cart, as well, unconsciously resorting to shopping therapy—feeling a little more in control over what he could buy than he did over Dean's and Sam's medical conditions._

_Sam had been sitting in the car, unmoving, but awake, when Luke had left the drug store. The younger man had taken both pills Luke had handed him with a bottle of water without comment. They'd driven to the motel in silence, Sam not stirring at all as Luke got them checked in and drove them around to their room._

"_Sam?" Luke set the last of the bags on the floor next to the television. "Do you want to take a shower before…?"_

_But, looking down at Sam, he realized that the boy was sound asleep, still in the exact position he'd laid down in initially, face pale against the dark fabric of the comforter, even, shallow breaths gently stirring the shock of hair that had fallen across his forehead over his eyes._

"_Sammy?" The diminutive slipped past Luke without his realizing it. _

_There was no sign from Sam that he'd heard, and the older man shifted toward the bed, reaching for the shoelaces on the boots that were sprawled across the coverlet. Untying the laces, Luke eased off Sam's shoes, setting them on the floor. Knowing there was no way he was going to try to wrestle Sam's inert body under the covers, Luke settled for folding the comforter over him._

"_Sleep tight, kiddo."_

_xxxx_

_Exiting the elevator, Luke could hear the sound of an argument drifting down the hall. He couldn't make out words, but the loudest of the voices sounded remarkably like Sam's. He glanced at the nurses' station as he approached and met the concerned eyes of a couple of the young women who had been caring for Dean over the last week._

"_That doesn't sound good," he said._

"_They've been at it about five minutes," said a male nurse who'd stood as Luke walked up. _

_Luke nodded. "I'll see what I can do."_

_There'd been no denying the tension between the Winchesters, particularly Sam and John, as Luke and Jo had tried to be there for the boys. Up until this point, though, most of the frustration has simmered just below the surface, limited primarily to snapping and baleful looks. _

_Evidently, John and Sam had decided to take things to the next level this morning._

_Getting closer, Luke found the words and the emotions under them becoming clearer._

"_I'm saying that when I give you an order, Sammy, I expect you to follow it. Without question. And without looking to your brother for confirmation. Lives depend…"_

_From the tone of John's voice, Luke could tell the man was struggling to sound reasonable and in control. The underlying tremor, however, revealed the depth of John's frustration._

"_Right," Sam shot back, anger undisguised. "Because God forbid either of us—Dean in particular—have a thought of his own!"_

"_God damn it, Sammy!" There was no hiding the rage now—John's voice shook with it. "I'm the head of this family, and if you…" _

"_Family!" Sam's voice cracked into a higher octave. "Family? If you think what we have is a family, you Goddamn, selfish son of a bitch…" He was yelling full-out._

"_Sam." Dean's voice, breathless and weak, could be heard just as Luke rounded the corner into the room._

"_Mornin'."_

_The scene froze._

_Sam and John stood at the end of the bed, nose to nose, faces red with emotion. John had taken a step forward, left fist clenched awkwardly on Sam's shirt, pushing even as Luke entered the room. _

_With one long stride, Luke was between the two men, shoving John back with a firm but gentle hand, separating them._

_For a split-second, Luke thought that John was going to come at him. The dark haired man had staggered slightly as he'd been rocked back from his son and the expression on his face contorted with a momentary, blinding rage. Luke braced himself, eyes narrowing at the younger man. _

Come on.

_But John paused, taking another step back, a shaking hand coming up to rub at his face._

"_This isn't any of your business," John said roughly, his gaze focused on Sam._

"_You're starting to disturb people on the hall," Luke said mildly. "And I assume you'd rather deal with me than Nurse Roberson." _

_Luke's eyes turned to Dean. The color the young man had started to regain the last couple of days had leeched from his face, the fading bruises a startling gray-green. His eyes, dark with emotion, were exhausted and grateful when they met Luke's. He nodded almost imperceptibly._

"_Where's Jo?"_

_Sam had retreated to a corner of the room near the door, and he asked the question quietly, eyes somehow lost as he looked at Luke._

"_She overslept and sent me on ahead." He reached out to pat Dean gently on the foot before he turned his attention to Sam. "I think she may try to get some laundry and shopping done before she heads up here."_

_Sam nodded and pushed away from the wall._

"_I'm going back to the motel," he said. He cast a quick, apologetic glance at his brother._

_John took a step forward._

"_You can't walk away from this," he started, evidently intent again on finishing what they'd begun. _

_Luke shifted his stance, eyes going from one man to the other._

"_Dad…" Dean spoke softly, his own eyes mimicking Luke's. He moved restlessly under the covers, wincing slightly._

"_I can't do this right now," Sam said. He turned away from his father, shoulders hunched in defeat._

"_Don't you turn your back on me," John said, voice rising, furious that Sam would not obey. "If you leave this room…."_

_The threat hung there._

_Sam turned slowly, disbelief registering all over his rigid body. _

"_If I leave this room, what?" _

_Sam's voice was soft, but his eyes were like jade when he looked at his father, hard and unyielding. "Don't come back?" _

_Sam's tone was scathing, almost daring his father to say it again. _

_John blanched and didn't respond._

"_Sammy." Dean's voice shook, and Luke moved closer to the bed, putting a calming hand on Dean's leg._

_Sam blinked, turning his gaze to his brother. Luke let go a sigh when Sam's features softened, and he gave his brother his own version of Dean's quirking grin._

"_I'll see you later this afternoon, OK?" Sam said it gently, responding to the underlying panic in his older brother's voice. He didn't look at his father. "I just need some air."_

_Dean nodded, a shuddering exhaled breath the only sign of his relief._

"_Yeah." _

_Sam gathered up his jacket and the books and papers he'd been reading. From the door, he looked back at Luke, expression uncertain again._

"_Should I take a cab or…" He trailed off._

_Luke dug into his pockets for the keys to the car._

"_Jo was going to call when she was ready." He took a couple of steps toward Sam, handing the boy the keys when Sam held out his hand. "Y'all come back whenever. I'll be here."_

_Sam's head was down, watching the keys, and he nodded tightly. He didn't lift his face. "Thanks," he whispered. _

"_See you in a little while," Luke sad._

_Sam nodded, eyes going to Dean one more time before he left._

God.

_It wasn't a profanity; it was a prayer._

_Luke turned back to John Winchester. _

_John's face was expressionless as he stared at Luke. A muscle twitched in his jaw._

"_Well. I guess you took care of that."_

"_Dad, please…"_

_John didn't look at Dean, just turned and limped stiffly out the door._

_Luke turned slowly to Dean, who was motionless in his bed, staring at the door. The hazel eyes came to Luke, humiliation and a tired resignation shadowing them._

"_Sorry," Dean said softly. _

"_Don't be." Luke moved to the side of the bed, sitting in the chair that was there._

_Dean nodded, eyes moving to the dark screen of the television set that hung in the corner. Dean was exhausted, Luke knew, and still in considerable physical pain. He just didn't have the emotional reserves to handle this kind of confrontation between his father and his brother. _

"_I don't know what to do."_

_Luke closed his eyes at the weariness in Dean's voice, anger building in his chest that John couldn't put aside his differences with Sam for the length of time it would take to let Dean to heal. Over the last several days, Luke had watched Sam try to avoid arguments with his father, doing what he could to side-step old issues, backing down, swallowing his pride as he struggled to do what he could to support his brother. _

_But John had been stubborn, frustration and helplessness driving him to pick and pick until Sam had finally pushed back and they'd argued, dumping their pain and anger all over this broken boy, expecting him to be the buffer between them, even from a hospital bed. _

_It was pissing Luke off._

"_Have you always been in the middle of things with them?" he asked._

_Dean nodded, a muscle jumping in his cheek as he tried to get a handle on his emotions. Luke wished suddenly and powerfully that Jo were here to deal with this. _

"_It's not fair that they expect that of you," he said._

_Dean continued to study the blank screen above him and lifted a shoulder in a slight shrug._

"_What else am I supposed to do?" he asked._

"_Let the two of them work it out on their own."_

_Dean shook his head._

"_Sam will go. I…"_

"_Sam's not going to leave, Dean." The "you" was unspoken. _Sam's not going to leave you, Dean.

_The younger man closed his eyes. He swallowed hard._

"_Dad…" Dean stopped. He couldn't even articulate the fear when it came to his father – he'd become too conscious lately of the power his father's approval held over him._

"_Dean." _

_Luke stopped, shifting slightly in his chair. Dean's attention was focused almost desperately on the television._

"_Did I ever tell you about my dad?" Luke asked._

_Dean blinked, eyes coming slowly to the man sitting next to him, at the change in subject. He shook his head._

"_He wanted me to be a doctor." _

_There was wry amusement in Luke's voice when he said it, cocking an eyebrow at Dean, inviting him into the humor of that idea._

"_He wanted more for me than the life he'd had—hardscrabble farming out in the middle of nowhere. His picture of my life was comfort and success in a big city." Luke took a deep breath. "The problem was, that wasn't the life I pictured for myself. I liked where we lived; I wanted to stay. When I took biology, I threw up every time we dissected anything—even the freaking worms."_

_Dean snorted softly._

"_But, it wasn't easy to tell my dad that. He was a hard man—hard on his family; hard on himself. I don't remember ever doubting that he loved me. Not really. But it scared the hell out of me to think of telling him I was dropping pre-med and transferring into criminal justice."_

_He looked at Dean._

"_But there came a point when I had to choose for myself. When I had to decide what I wanted, what was right for me—beyond what my father thought. And figuring out how to make my own decisions, but still honor him, wasn't easy. How was telling him I wasn't going to be who he wanted me to be anything other than disrespectful and disloyal?"_

_Luke shook his head. _

"_I wish I could say that when I told him my plans that he took it well, but I can't. He wouldn't pay for the rest of college for me, and I had to figure out a way to do it on my own. And things were strained. For a long while. But, as hard as it was to be at odds with my dad, I knew that I'd done the right thing for myself. And I realized that being my own man wasn't being disloyal to my father. It was actually being the man he'd raised me to be—even if it didn't look like what he'd envisioned."_

_Dean's eyes had returned to the television screen, and looking at the younger man's profile, Luke had a hard time reading his expression. _

"_I don't know exactly what your history is with your dad. Or with your dad and Sam." He hesitated. "And I don't know your dad. But, I know you. And I know Sam."_

_Luke paused._

"_You're both good men. Men any father should be proud to have as sons."_

_Dean blinked heavily, jaw tightening again._

"_If you have to make a decision, Dean, I know you'll make the one that's right for you. And by extension, I would imagine, for Sam as well."_

_Luke waited until he saw Dean's head move, almost imperceptibly, in a nod._

_Picking up the remote, Luke pointed it at the television, clicking it on. He leaned back in his chair, propping his feet up on the bed._

_He looked over at Dean. "Invalid picks the show," he said with a smile._

_xxxx _

_John stood at the entrance to the hospital contemplating bumming a smoke off the nurse's aide standing next to him. _

"_Good afternoon, John."_

_Jo had come up alongside him, and John bit back a scowl at the fact that she'd startled him. _

_He jerked his head in a semblance of a greeting._

"_Where's Sam?"_

_She pursed her lips._

"_He dropped me off."_

"_He told his brother he'd be back this afternoon," John said shortly, shooting a look at the woman next to him. He could almost see her hackles rise at the implied criticism of Sam._

"_He'll be back." _

_Jo's voice was clipped. There was a beat, and she added, "He wanted to get a milkshake for Dean." _

"_He only likes vanilla," John said, tone belligerent. _

_She frowned, exasperated by and tired of his attitude. "He knows that."_

_John frowned back at her. He hated this feeling of being judged—by her, by her husband, by the staff—for the way he dealt with his sons._

"_The doctor said they're going to release Dean in the next couple of days," he said abruptly._

_There. Something he knew that she didn't. _Mine. Not yours.

_The fact that he'd had to insist—demand—that the doctor talk to him without his "sister-in-law" present had been galling. _

_She looked surprised and a little hurt. _

"_Oh."_

"_I've got a place lined up for us. You and your husband don't need to stay any longer." His eyes met hers. _

_Jo blinked in the bright sunlight, clearly trying to regroup._

"_Oh," she said again. "Well, we'd hoped that they… you – all three of you – would come to our house. We…"_

"_Thank you, but that's not necessary." John's gaze was cool. "We've put you out too much as it is." _

"_We haven't been put out. We…"_

_John interrupted her again. _

"_You're nice to say that." Exaggeratedly polite now, deliberately distant. "But I know you have children of your own to take care of." _

You're dismissed.

_The woman stood there, mouth agape, searching for a response. _

"_I'm going to get lunch," he said, turning on his heel, not giving her a chance to reply._

_As he strode toward the car, John cursed softly under his breath. He did actually recognize that he was behaving badly. And had been since he'd met Jo and Luke. He'd been shocked and, as much as he hated to admit it, hurt by the existence of this couple he didn't know—hadn't known of—who loved his sons. Who his sons loved. _

_It had always been just the three of them – even after Sam had left, whatever the boy had thought – against the world. John hadn't set out to make it that way, but fear and necessity had narrowed his universe to what was "his." Dean and Sam. With a few exceptions, anything and anyone outside the circle of his family was extraneous—rarely wanted, definitely not needed._

_And then suddenly, here were these people, these strangers, second-guessing him, giving him doubtful or angry looks, putting their "or" in when it came to his sons. His sons. His._

_And Sam and Dean—Dean—listening to them, hesitating with him._

_It was inconceivable. _

_John turned the key in the ignition of the rent-a-heap he'd found while the Impala was in the shop. Pulling out of the hospital parking lot, he headed out of town, needing to drive for awhile and clear his head._

_As frustrated as John had been with Sam's teenaged rebellion and as startled as he'd been by Dean's more recent stubbornness, he'd never experienced the depth of rage he'd been consumed with over the last week in his interaction with the Sweeds and, frankly, pretty much everyone else. It was a constant, throbbing presence, making him itch with the desire to lash out in blind fury at anyone who crossed him. _

_He wanted to lay the blame on Jo and Luke and their incessant meddling. But it was more than that, he knew, because he'd felt it with Sam, almost let it burst forth on his youngest son this morning. Would have, he was afraid, if Luke hadn't intervened. _

_John's heart tightened painfully in his chest. It was the Demon. He could still feel its taint. In his head, in his heart. In his soul. Its presence, even absent, was coloring everything he thought and said. Part of John realized this, but he wouldn't—he couldn't—think about the ramifications of that truth._

_He hadn't dared to process what his body had done while it had been inhabited by that thing. He couldn't. Couldn't relive the hateful, lying words. Couldn't remember the looks on his sons' faces as the demon had tortured his children, mocked them with his face and his voice. _

_John knew that if he brought it up that both Dean and Sam would tell him they were fine, that it was OK, that they knew that it hadn't been their father who had done those things, said those things. But John also knew that those words, said to comfort him, would be lies. Not conscious ones maybe, but lies nonetheless. _

_He could see it in his sons' eyes._

_Uncertainty and doubt… wariness... hurt. _

_Fear. _

_Unbearable._

_Intolerable._

_And so._

_To see his sons with these people—Dean easy with Luke, Sam compliant for Jo, trusting them, depending on them—felt like a chasm that had been ripped into John's chest. He couldn't remember the last time Dean had been so relaxed around him, when even a simple suggestion hadn't started an argument with Sam. _

_The boys had become part of a family—one that didn't include their father._

_He was losing his sons._

_And the harder he tried… to hold on to them, to maintain his control, to reassert some authority over his boys… the further and faster it felt like his sons were slipping away from him._

_He had to get them away. Away from these people who were dividing their loyalties. Away from options that didn't include him. _

_If he could just get the boys to himself again, John thought that he could remind them of what bound them together, that they were a family. He could start to mend the damage that had been done. _

_But he had to get them away._

_xxxx _

_Dean sat in the wheelchair at the entrance of the hospital, Sam towering over him, Jo hovering at his side. Dean had offered only the slightest protest to the assistance, capitulating easily when the nurse had insisted._

_Sam had frowned. He'd been adamant, along with Jo, that it was too soon for Dean to be leaving the hospital. But John had insisted, and Dean had sided with their father._

"_Leave it, Sam," Dean had said tiredly. And amazingly, Sam had._

_Jo clutched the small bag of possessions that Sam and Dean were taking with them to her chest. She couldn't shake this anxiety that had gripped her over the last week, since the accident, since meeting the boys' father. There weren't words for her to express how wrong things felt to her—just this nagging, inescapable fear._

_She turned as the car John had rented pulled up to the curb. He stayed in the car, leaning over to open the passenger side door._

"_Dean," he said._

_Slowly, Dean rose from the chair while Sam held it steady. He straightened with a slight wince, smiling wryly at Jo as he turned toward her._

"_Thank you for coming," he said softly as she moved close to him. She thrust the bag at Sam before she put her arms gently around Dean. She shook her head, but didn't speak, holding him._

Don't go with him, _she wanted to say. _Come with us.

_But she kept her mouth shut, pulling away and letting him slide into the car. She kept her hands behind him, ready to catch him if he stumbled. Sam, she knew, was at her back, ready to catch them both. She shut the door, looked through to John. He nodded. She smiled tightly back._

Bastard, _she thought, with a viciousness that surprised her, willing herself not to cry._

"_Hey."_

_Sam's soft voice behind her. She turned, wiping angrily at the tear that had escaped. She smiled up at him._

"_Be careful," she said, hugging him. "Take care of each other, OK?" She said it softly, for him alone. "I know you will," she said. "I just…"_

_Sam nodded, holding on tightly._

"_If you need us…" She said it as she pulled away. "If you need us…" she placed her palm against his cheek as he nodded again, his face serious and anxious._

"_Sam." Sharp, from John._

"_Yeah," he responded. Sam's eyes went to the car and came back to her. "I know," he whispered._

_He opened the back door and got in._

"_Tell Luke we're sorry we missed him," Dean said from the front, eyes regretful._

"_I will," she said, putting a hand on his arm where it lay propped on the window. Deliberately she didn't look at John, who had said they couldn't wait. "He'll be sorry, too." She wouldn't ask again. _

_The car began to inch forward, and Jo's hand lost its contact with Dean. The boy's head swiveled to his father then back out the window to Jo. He raised his hand at her._

_Jo raised her hand in return, letting the tears of anger and frustration begin to fall. _

_She was still there when Luke drove up 10 minutes later._

_xxxx_


	7. Chapter 7

_Frail, Chapter 7_

Sam wasn't sure how much time had passed when he heard the sound of a door opening and closing to his left. He'd been working on the cords around his wrists, rubbing them against a small outcropping of rough spot on the wall above him. He didn't think he was making much progress. Sam bit his lip against the scrape of raw flesh against the cement, conscious of the slick feeling of blood slipping down his arms.

Sam glanced over at Tommy as the footsteps approached and saw the boy's head turn toward the sound before his frightened gaze came back to Sam.

"It's okay," Sam said softly. He watched Tommy draw in on himself, trying to make his small body even smaller. Across the space that separated them, Sam could see the whites around the dark shadow of Tommy's irises.

"It's going to be okay," Sam said again.

Tommy nodded jerkily, but didn't make a sound. Knees drawn up tightly to his chest, the boy ducked his head down, face turned in the direction of the approaching steps. His arms, stretched up like Sam's, pulled down ineffectually as the boy tried instinctively to curl into a protective ball. Sam watched a tremor run through Tommy's frame. Something Gene Potter has said or done had terrified the boy beyond what the kid had told Sam.

The man who entered was hardly recognizable as the Gene Potter Sam had met and served in the diner. While Gene had always been "rough" looking in a shaggy-haired, unshaven, vaguely greasy kind of way, the man standing in front of Sam was way past rough. He looked like hell – literally, Sam suspected. Unkempt and marred with deep bruises and cuts, the man's whole presence was _wrong_. His eyes—while neither the pitch black of Meg's possession nor the golden-orange his father's eyes had taken on when he'd been possessed by the Demon—glittered with a madness that caught Sam's breath in his throat. He felt the terror that had infected Tommy steal through him, numbing his arms and his legs and his brain.

Like a hunted animal, Sam went completely still, as if immobility would make him invisible to the man who approached. Tommy had frozen as well, the only movement in his eyes as they followed Gene Potter across the room. His gaze darted to Sam helplessly before being drawn back to the man who had stopped in front of the child.

"Gene." Sam said it sharply, his mind coming suddenly unstuck at the sight of Potter looming over Tommy.

The man's head swiveled toward Sam. _That's it. Over here._

Sam felt the moisture leave his mouth as he caught sight of the expression on Gene Potter's face. _Dear God._

"What do you want from us?" Sam asked thickly, forcing the words past dry lips.

Potter took two steps toward Sam, and Sam held his breath, pressing against the unyielding stone at his back in spite of himself.

"What do I want?" The timbre of the voice that came out of Potter's mouth struck a horrific chord deep in Sam's chest, and he heard Tommy make a soft frightened sound from across the room.

In Potter's eyes, the madness had dropped away, replaced by an inky blackness—a depthless Nothing.

It gazed thoughtfully at Sam.

"What do you think I want?" it asked. A sane, reasonable-sounding question that turned Sam's blood to ice.

"I don't know," Sam whispered, hating the quaver he could hear in his voice.

The black eyes went to the huddled boy. A cold smile touched its face.

"How do you think the child's aunt will respond to his death?" It turned back to Sam. "Will her faith be destroyed by another such loss?"

Sam couldn't breathe, eyes caught by the confusion and terror in Tommy's.

"And your brother?" Sam's eyes snapped back to Potter. "The boy killed? His brother… broken, dead?"

Sam was suffocating.

"Could he be turned by that loss?"

The demon seemed to pose the question theoretically, but the glint of cruelty in the twist of its mouth gave away the intent, and Sam reached desperately for the anger that had surged at being toyed with, clawing his way out of the breathless numbness that had taken hold.

How dared this _thing_ question Dean's integrity, his goodness?

"You'll never turn my brother," Sam gritted in fury. "No matter what you do. Dean would _never_ …"

The demon howled in amusement.

"'Dean would _never_'?" it said contemptuously. "Boy, you have no idea what a man will do in the face of such grief and rage." It paused. Said consideringly, "Although perhaps you do." Sam swallowed. "Besides. We don't necessarily need to turn him _to_ us. If he turns away from what is good, abandons his purpose…."

Sam's chin came up, and he met the demon's dark gaze fiercely.

"You don't know what you're talking about," he said. "Dean would never abandon the hunt. If you kill me, if you kill Tommy, my brother won't rest until he's killed anyone and anything that's responsible."

The demon cocked Potter's head at him.

"And how is that not turning him away from his purpose?" it asked softly. "Your brother's purpose involves more than just you, Sam Winchester. He has a larger job to do and your death, the child's death, might provide the … distraction that is necessary."

It grinned at Sam.

"Who would have thought that inhabiting _this_ body would provide such unexpected opportunities?"

xxxx

Dean pulled a wooden box out of the trunk of the Impala and hauled it clumsily up the stairs of the porch. He dropped it heavily on the kitchen table, throwing back the bulky lid. It was an old apothecary's box, with compartments that were meant to hold bottles of drug components. Sam had found it on a curbside one trash day and appropriated it for the collection of herbs and other materials he'd begun to hoard since their visit to Kansas. The power of Missouri's anti-poltergeist potpourri had fascinated Sam, and the younger hunter had started to haunt the small stores in any town they visited that sold rare herbs or difficult to find ingredients for the spells they might need. In the months since they'd seen Bobby, Sam had added what he could from the book the man had given them. Dean was almost positive that everything he'd need for the binding spell would be in the box.

"Michael, come here."

The boys had been trailing Dean from one place to the other, not sure what was expected, but willing to do what they were told. Michael moved toward the table.

"Can you follow a recipe?" Dean asked, sliding the large volume across the table toward the boy.

"Yeah," Michael said.

"OK. Then pull out all the ingredients you see listed here." He tapped a long finger on the page. "Don't mix them. Just pull them. Jake, you watch and double check him, got it?"

The boys nodded and got to work. Dean strode back toward the car. Rummaging through the weapons cache, he pulled out a couple of shotguns and two boxes of shells – one of salt rounds, one of consecrated iron rounds. Setting to them to the side, he found the five gallon jug of holy water he'd stashed in the back of the trunk, grabbing three smaller containers he could fill up. Next he grabbed three knives – each one with solid silver blades, blessed by a priest – dropping them next to the guns. Finally, he pulled out a spare duffel bag, thrusting everything he'd gathered into it and slamming the lid to the trunk.

When he got back to the kitchen, he saw that the kids had completed their task and were, he would guess, triple-checking what they'd done.

"Good," he said shortly. He tossed the duffel bag on the other end of the table. "Michael, do you have a coat with pockets, like this?" Dean held up his own weathered army jacket.

"Yeah."

"Go get it."

Michael left the room.

"Come here, Jake."

The boy obeyed.

"There are two boxes of shells in there. Split them into two piles. Each pile gets half of each kind of shell, got it?"

Jake nodded started to root through the bag as Dean turned his attention to the collection of ingredients on the table. He was in the middle of mixing things together when Michael returned. Dean held up a quieting hand when teenager started to ask a question. Rebuffed, Michael joined Jake at the duffel, pulling out the weapons with a faint air of trepidation. He cast an apprehensive look at the man at the table.

Quickly, Dean finished the concoction, tying up the final product in a leather sachet. He murmured a brief incantation as he pulled the cord tight. Picking up his jacket, he put the packet into one of the interior pockets, shrugging on the coat.

"Dean?"

The man turned to the boys seated on the floor.

"Where's your coat?"

Michael held up an old barn jacket, and Dean nodded his approval.

"Put it on."

As the boy struggled into the coat, Dean moved toward the kids, sitting suddenly next to Jake by the duffel. He pulled one of the piles of shotgun shells toward him.

"You see the red shells?" He held one up and both boys nodded. "Michael, fill one of your front pockets with just red shells."

The boy nodded, sorting through the piles while Dean did the same. Jake helped his brother, pulling out red shells and handing them over. Dean made a deliberate choice not to explain how the shells worked on spirits or corporeal entities.

"The green shell casings are a different kind of shell, OK? Fill your other pocket with those shells." Scooping up the remaining shells, they filled their second pockets.

"When we get there, I want you to use one of each shell to load the gun, Michael, you got it? And if you have to reload, one of each."

Michael nodded.

"The truth is, I'm not sure exactly what we're dealing with. And you need to know that the shotgun blasts may not kill whatever it is. They'll slow 'em down, whatever they are, and they _may_ kill 'em, but don't count on that. If you have to shoot, even if you get a square hit, run like hell, you got it?"

Both boys nodded again, eyes wide.

"I don't intend for you to have to use the gun, Michael. But you're going to be in charge of getting Sam and Tommy clear while I deal with what took them, and I want you to have it, just in case."

Dean knew that the boys had hunted with Luke and so understood gun safety and how to handle firearms. He didn't mean for Michael to have to fire at all, but he wasn't going to leave them unprotected.

He handed each boy a knife with its sheath. Again without explaining. They took them with uncertain looks, tucking them into the back waistbands of their jeans.

Finally, he pulled out the five gallon jug and smaller containers, taking them to the sink. He filled up each bottle, placing one in Michael's hand and one in Jake's.

"Holy water."

"For real?" Jake's voice cracked incredulously.

At Dean's look, Jake ducked his head.

"It's just so… _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_," he mumbled defensively.

Dean reached out a hand and squeezed Jake's neck, earning himself a surprised, achingly scared look. The boy edged closer, and Dean smiled wryly, rubbing a gentle hand over Jake's head.

"I know it sounds cheesy, but it works, OK?"

Jake nodded. "OK."

xxxx

Turning toward Tommy, the demon made its way across the room, ignoring Sam's attempts to catch its attention again, the boy's frantic scrambling.

With a wave of its hand, the ties around Tommy's wrists fell away and he gasped as his arms collapsed into his lap. The demon's hand shot out, circling the boy's neck and jerking him upright, twisting the child around and pulling him back against Potter's body. With one hand it grasped Tommy's chin, stretching the slim throat up and with the other it reached down pulling a knife out of its boot.

Sam strained frantically against his bonds, watching in horror as with one swift, fluid movement the demon brought the knife up and began its slash across the exposed skin of Tommy's throat.

"NOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Sam's scream of anguish reverberated in the narrow confines of the cellar, deafening him to the piercing cry of the demon itself as it was hurled backward across the room, colliding with a sickening crunch against the wall on the far side of the basement.

Sam pitched forward as the cords around his wrists came loose in the same instant, and gasping, Sam surged to his feet, too focused on getting at the demon to question his sudden freedom.

"Sam!"

"Tommy," he breathed, dropping to his knees, arms encircling the small the body that had hurled itself at him.

"Are you OK?"

Over Tommy's shoulder, Sam could see Potter at the base of the far wall, immobile. It took a beat for Sam to register what he'd just done, the power punching out of him uncontrolled again, fueled by panic and adrenaline. Sam tightened his grip on Tommy, his battered body start to shake in reaction.

He pushed Tommy back from him, examining the boy's neck, finding only a small nick on the fragile skin.

Tommy was trembling, and Sam asked again, voice breaking with urgency, "Are you OK?"

The boy nodded, pressing insistently back into Sam. "Yeah," he whispered.

Sam squeezed him hard one more time, eyes locked on the still form across the room.

"Let's get out of here."

xxxx

In the car, a heavy silence hung in the air. Dean sat in the passenger seat, working through a dozen different scenarios in his head, hoping on some level to have thought of everything before confronting Potter. As Michael had driven, Dean had read and reread and reread again the incantation in Bobby's book, committing it to memory fairly easily given the drills Dad had run with him and Sam when they'd been young.

Between the two of them, Michael and Jake had tried to give Dean an idea of the layout of the old cabin—entrances and exits, rooms, hallways. Evidently there was a cellar of some sort as well, and while the local kids often haunted the abandoned house, neither boy had ventured down into the basement. _Creepy_, Jake had said with a shudder.

Next to Dean, Michael sat still, eyes to the front, hands at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel of the Impala. Dean had let Michael drive, needing the time to concentrate on learning the spell and finalize plans; and Michael was the one who knew the way. Dean felt a certain regret that Michael's first chance to drive the car was this particular situation. But it was what it was.

Twisting toward the back, Dean could see the tension and anxiety radiating off Jake in jittery waves. The boy's knee bounced up and down, and even though he wasn't moving that much Jake gave the impression of a kid bouncing off the walls. Dean watched him narrowly for a couple of brief moments, concerned that Jake's nerves might turn into full-blown panic, making him useless for the task Dean needed him. Biting the inside of his cheek, Dean tried to figure out what might calm the boy down.

"Hey, Jakey?" Michael's voice, quiet beside him, startled Dean. "You know what I was thinking?" The teenager, still staring down the road, didn't turn toward the back or even glance in the rear view mirror.

There was no verbal response from Jake, but turning slightly, out of the corner of his eye Dean saw the younger boy's eyes focus on his brother.

"You remember that song from Vacation Bible School? The one Miss Maddie made us sing every summer?"

Again, there were no words from Jake, just a nodding of his head. Michael continued on as if he'd seen the slight motion.

"Put it on, put it on, the armor of God, everyday we need the armor of God, put on the armor of God." Michael spoke softly, not singing really, although Dean could hear the cadence of the music in the rhythm of the words. Dean eyes, which had turned toward Michael, shifted back to Jake, gauging the younger boy's reaction.

Jake didn't join in, but he was listening, eyes intent on the side of Michael's face visible from his vantage point. A sudden movement to his left returned Dean's attention to Michael, and he watched as Michael's right hand came off the steering wheel, motioning like he was putting on a hat.

"The helmet of salvation goes on your head," he whispered in sync with his movement, "So when the battle gets hard, you can stand," he put the arm awkwardly akimbo on his hip. "Use the sword of the Spirit," now he made a slashing movement with his hand.

Startled, Dean's eyes turned more fully back to Jake.

Dean wasn't exactly sure what he expected to see, but it hadn't been Jake's mesmerized attention on Michael. His serious expression was softened by the slight curve of his lips as he watched his older brother act out the simple children's song.

The look was one Dean recognized, but had never really _seen_ before – slightly exasperated amusement and a kind of wondering awe that translated into an absolute, unwavering faith in its object.

It was the same expression Dean had seen on Sam's face from time to time over the years, and recognizing it for the first time, it made Dean's stomach ache in sharp remembrance and with the gnawing fear that he had betrayed that confidence when he'd failed to protect his brother from this demon.

Michael finished the song, hand motions and all.

"Therefore, take up the armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day. And having done everything stand firm."

Silence descended again, and Michael met his brother's eyes in the rear view mirror.

"Whatever happens, Jake, God is in control," he said.

Dean saw the tears start into Jake's eyes, but they didn't fall and the younger boy nodded, swallowing hard.

"Remember that, OK, Jakey? No matter what."

Jake nodded again, eyes still fixed on his older brother's in the reflction. "I know," he whispered.

Michael's head turned toward Dean and the slight smile on his face faded as his eyes caught Dean's for a brief moment before they sought out the horizon stretching out in front of them.

Behind him, Dean saw that Jake had settled, leaning his head back against the seat and turning his head to the left, the boy watched the scenery as it sped by.

When they arrived at the turn off for the Millers' place, Dean told Michael to cut the engine, letting the Impala roll to a stop just past the gate. Climbing out of the car, the three young men walked around to the trunk, pulling out the weapons and tools they would need for the mission.

"You know your jobs, right?" Dean asked it quietly, looking at each boy in turn.

Michael and Jake nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Get Sam and Tommy to safety; don't wait for me; get out. You got it?"

Again they nodded and they set out.

It was a half a mile from the road down to the house, and Dean kept up a pace that had the two boys behind him moving at an almost trot. As they closed in, Dean moved the hunting party off the road into the brush, crouched low until they reached border of hedges almost 20 yards from the house. Dean paused, letting Michael and Jake catch their breaths.

There was a dim light glowing from one of the windows and Dean pointed to it, eyes steely as he looked at Michael.

"Looks like you were right," he said, voice low.

As they circled the house, a beat up Oldsmobile crouched under some low-lying bushes.

"Recognize it?" Dean asked.

"Mrs. Potter's," Jake breathed.

Dean nodded in grim satisfaction. _Good_.

xxxx

Sam and Tommy were almost to the top of the stairs when they heard the demon howl, rage and frustration echoing around them as they scrambled up the wooden steps. Sam heard Tommy's terrified gasp, barely managing to swallow his own as he thrust the boy in front of him.

"Run!"

The stairs disgorged them into the kitchen, but Sam had no idea where to go from there. Any escape he might have hoped for out a back door was crushed by the sight of the tree that had fallen across the rear of the house, blocking the door, barricading the way.

"This way!" Tommy yelled.

In front of him, Sam saw Tommy dart to the right, racing toward what Sam could only hope would be the way to freedom.

Behind them, Sam could hear the pounding of footsteps on the stairs, chasing, relentless. As he ran after Tommy, Sam's mind desperately tried to come up with a game plan, knowing he probably shouldn't count on another random burst of adrenaline-fueled psychic power to save them.

But he had nothing.

Panting at the pain in his head and his chest, heedless of the debris on the floor and the damage being done to his bare feet, Sam stumbled after the smaller boy, propelled forward by the demon's cries behind him, growing louder as the entity gained on him.

xxxx

A bellow from the house rippled down Dean's spine, lodging in the pit of his stomach where it blossomed into the visceral, powerful "fight" reaction he depended on in these types of situations.

"Move," he commanded, starting to race toward the house. Behind him, Dean sensed rather than saw Michael and Jake, right behind him as he surged forward.

xxxx

Tommy was almost to the front door when Sam made his stand against the demon.

It was tooclosetooclose_tooclose_, sure to catchhim _catchTommy_ if Sam didn't do something_anything_ to distract the evil son of a bitch bearing down on him _on them_.

Tommy hesitated as he ran, sensing freedom, turning to check that Sam was there, meeting Sam's eyes for a brief instant.

"Go, Tommy, go," Sam yelled. "Don't look back!"

Tommy flinging himself forward, reaching for the knob, throwing the door open, Sam almost sobbing in relief as the boy's slight form disappeared out into the gray light.

_Please…._

And then Sam stopped running. Pivoting around to face the demon.

The demon, barreling around the corner, skidding as it slowed in surprise, might have been comic if Sam had been in the state of mind to appreciate it. Instead, he threw out a hand, commanding.

"Stop!"

The demon, wary after its earlier encounter with Sam's power, obeyed. Grudging.

It narrowed its eyes.

"Can you really control it, boy?" it asked softly.

Sam met the demon's black stare grimly.

"What do you think?" he asked, voice hard, not backing down.

"I think…," the demon said gently, "…not."

Sam felt a pressure like a hand around his throat, picking him up and hurling him into the wall across the room. Vaguely, he was aware that the grip on his neck hadn't slackened, pinning him against the rough boards, feet barely reaching the floor. He forced his eyes open, wretching, choking, pain and nausea almost defeating him as he sought out the demon.

Slowly, Potter's body made its way to him, shaking its head in mock pity.

_That's right, you bastard,_ he thought. _Come on._

xxxx

They'd just cleared the hedges when the door to the house in front of them banged open and a figure staggered out, down the steps of the porch, veering across the clearing, headed away from his rescuers.

Dean heard Michael gasp Tommy's name behind him, and Dean snapped, "Quiet," even as he altered his course, now running toward the boy.

"Tommy," he called it low, knowing it would carry in the stillness. Tommy whirled toward them, stumbling backward in fear before he recognized them.

Dean was still headed for Tommy when there was a scream from the cabin, and Dean felt the shock of recognition in his bones.

_Sam._

"Sam!"

Tommy's answering cry rang with the sudden realization that the older boy wasn't with him, and to Dean's horror, the youngster began to run back toward the house.

"Tommy, no!" Both Dean and Michael said it at the same time, leaping forward, reaching out, trying to catch the boy.

But there was too big a gap between them, and by the time they caught up to the other boy, they were all running through the door of the cabin, Dean catching the collar of Tommy's shirt, and jerking the child back into the arms of his oldest brother.

Dean's own brother was stretched spread-eagle across the wall, his face contorted in an agony that tore into Dean; Sam, eyes pain-wracked and exhausted, only slowly registered the presence of his older brother. _Dean._

The commotion at the door distracted the demon from Sam, dark eyes snapping to the three boys at the door and then to Dean.

"Well, well, well," it said. "Look who's here."

Dean wrenched his eyes from Sam's haggard face, and turned his attention, ice-cold and deadly, on the creature that held his brother.

"Yeah," he said. "The cavalry."

With a swift, underhand toss, Dean threw the satchel with the spell's ingredients at the demon, hitting it square in the chest, the carefully tied leather cord coming loose as Dean had intended, scattering the contents over and around Potter's possessed body.

Dean moved forward, reciting the incantation, sprinkling holy water as he chanted, and on a roar, the demon arched back, howling its protest as the spell trapped it, holding it in place, restricting its movement and its power. Panting, it glared at Dean, fists clenching and unclenching impotently.

Sam slid to the ground, hitting the floor with a muffled groan as the three boys by the door started to move toward him.

"Stay," Dean ordered, throwing out a hand, not willing to let them come any farther into the room for the moment.

"Sam," Tommy whispered, but he was held firmly in place by Michael, who clutched him close.

Breathing heavily, Dean pulled his father's journal out of an interior jacket pocket, and flipped it open, glancing down to make sure he'd found the correct page. His attention didn't leave the demon.

"Tommy, stay by the door, do you hear me?" he said.

"But…"

"No. Stay there," he said sharply. There was no answer, and Dean cut his eyes to the boy. "Do you understand me?" he asked again, voice harsh and impatient.

"Yes, sir." Almost a sob.

"Michael, Jake, go get Sam."

He could see the other two boys as they scrambled across the room to Sam's crumpled figure, lifting him carefully, maneuvering his long body awkwardly away. Dean could see that his brother was conscious, feet stumbling with the boys', trying to get himself upright. Michael and Jake got to the door, propping Sam against the jamb, waiting for their next instructions. Sam leaned heavily on Michael, eyes struggling to clear.

"Go. All of you." He wouldn't subject the boys to this.

"Dean…" Sam's weak whisper wasn't heard by anyone except his brother.

"I'll be right behind you, Sammy," he said gently.

Out of the corner of his eye, Dean saw the small group make its way carefully out of the house.

Dean kept his focus on the demon in front of him, gathering himself, giving Michael time to get everyone to a safer distance.

The demon stood without moving, hatred visible in the black eyes, directed at the man who controlled it.

"Let's get this finished," Dean said. And he started to read.

xxxx

"We can't leave him."

Sam was gasping for air, dragging himself between Michael and Jake as they tried to help him toward the car.

"Michael, we can't leave him," he repeated, his urgency causing his breath to come in pants.

They stumbled to a halt, Michael adjusting Sam's arm over his shoulders.

"Dean wanted us to get you away," he said uncertainly. "He told us to take you and Tommy and go. Not wait."

Sam grit his teeth. He was having a hard time getting his thoughts in order and wasn't sure he could put together a rational argument to sway Michael to his side.

So he just said it again, more desperately, "We can't leave him."

Sam saw Michael and Jake exchange glances.

Slowly, Michael nodded. "OK. What do I do?"

Sam swallowed hard. "What's the plan?"

"He found this … spell, I guess, that would bind the demon. And then he was going to exorcise it. He said there was something in your dad's notebook that would help."

A deep, shuddering breath as Sam thought.

"What do you have?"

"Shotguns with two different kinds of shells, knives, holy water."

Sam nodded, knowing the shells and the knives.

"OK. Take it all, but have the holy water out and ready to go. It'll slow the demon down if anything goes wrong, hurt it. If it gets lose, that might give Dean a chance…" Sam trailed off, breathing heavily.

Michael nodded. "I'll go."

Jake opened his mouth to protest, but Michael cut him off.

"You can't go, Jake. Tommy can't get Sam to the car on his own. You know that. And he can't drive." He dug in his pocket and produced the keys. "If we're not back at the car in an hour, go."

He dropped the keys into Jake's hand, clasping it briefly.

"OK, Jake? Get them to safety," he said softly, "and take care of Tommy."

Jake nodded tightly. "Be careful."

Easing out from under Sam's arm, Michael moved Tommy into his place.

"Jake's in charge, Tommy," he said seriously.

Wide-eyed, Tommy nodded.

At a run, Michael headed back to the house.

xxxx

The demon struggled against the ritual—like Meg had, like that bastard in the freaking plane had—thrashing against the psychic bonds, but held in place by the spell.

Dean recited the words in his father's journal, the Latin coming slowly, but surely, as the ritual worked powerfully against the evil thing in Gene Potter's body.

The first indication that something might be wrong was the sudden slide of Potter's foot across the floor, slipping the confines of the restrictions that had been placed around the demon itself.

The abrupt movement took Dean by surprise, and he began to read faster, trying not to stumble over the words, but nervous with the demon's increased freedom. The demon itself, empowered by the apparent loosening of its bindings, renewed its efforts.

"Worried, boy?" it chortled.

Dean felt a frisson of fear shudder through him as the demon's other foot seemed to come loose of the spell and Potter's body took a stuttering step toward him.

Taking a step back of his own, Dean could only read faster, desperately hoping that he would be finished before the spell lost its power completely.

A roar of triumph alerted Dean to the reality that he had failed, and he dropped his father's journal—open—at his feet just as a surge of power lifted him off his feet, slamming his body into yet another wall, confirming the depth of that failure.

Dean hit the wall with a teeth-shattering impact that left him momentarily stunned as he fell to the ground. But even as he frantically sucked in the breath that had been forced out of his lungs, he was moving, scrambling, legs and arms struggling to get him upright.

"Dean!"

Dean turned and the demon moved again, throwing Dean across the room.

Its back to Michael, intent on the other man, the demon missed the boy pulling out the flask of holy water. Uncapping the bottle, Michael threw the water at the demon and then staggered back in surprise when the demon screamed in agony, its skin smoking and boiling as it flailed and howled its rage.

"Does the pup want to be a part of this?" the demon ground out turning its attention to the teenager. "So be it."

Moving faster than Michael was able to react, the demon was on him, driving the startled boy to the ground, using blows of flesh and bone, fists pounding. Trapped under the weight of the demon, Michael was unable to fight back, taking blow after blow, stunned and hurting.

Fighting his way to his feet, Dean hurled himself at the demon, pausing just long enough to pick up the bottle of holy water Michael had dropped in the attack. Dean hit the demon solidly in the chest, knocking it back and off the younger man.

Michael rolled away, shaking and breathless, not sure what to do as Dean wrestled with the demon, dousing it with holy water and trying to subdue it. A few feet away, he saw the leather journal. Scrambling over, he picked it up.

Michael knew that the language was Latin. Dean had told them that much about the exorcism ritual, but Michael didn't know the meaning of the words themselves. He just knew that Dean had said that saying them, speaking the words aloud, had the power to send a demon back to hell.

_The seventy returned with joy, saying, "Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name."_

Hesitantly, Michael began to read. He started at the top of the left hand page, sounding out the words, stumbling over some, mis-pronouncing most. But he didn't stop, doggedly working his way down the page.

The demon faltered suddenly in Dean's grasp and Dean took quick advantage, exploiting the momentary weakness, managing to pin it firmly under him, knees digging into Potter's biceps as he poured holy water over the exposed chest and face. The demon continued to shriek and squirm, but Dean felt a subtle difference in the nature of the fight and he paused, off-guard and cautious. The demon panted where it was, confused, an odd, frightened look on its face.

To his right, Dean became aware of Michael's voice and he turned to see the boy, head down, reading steadily, horribly, in Latin from Dad's journal. Dean opened his mouth to tell the kid to cut it out when the demon began to shudder, a long, piercing scream echoing through the room, shocking Michael into momentary silence.

Dean's eyes went from the heaving, panicked demon to the white-faced boy holding the worn leather journal and back again.

_Holy crap._

"Keep reading," he commanded.

Michael's eyes cut to Dean and then to Potter.

"Michael. Now!"

The younger man jumped and obeyed, and Dean held on tight as the demon in Potter began to fight in earnest, weakened though it was by the holy water and the influence of the exorcism. It was still a battle that Dean wasn't always positive he was going to win.

"Good, Michael, good!"

Dean could feel the fight seeping out of the demon. Michael, eyes round in wonder, read with more and more conviction as the effects of the exorcism began to take their toll on the demon.

Finally, Michael read the closing words of the ritual and the two men cringed away from the black entity that poured out of Gene Potter's mouth as it opened in one last scream of protest.

The sudden silence in the house was oppressive.

Michael blinked at Dean.

"Is it over?" he whispered.

"Yeah," Dean said hoarsely. "I think it is."

He rolled off Gene Potter. Reaching out a shaking hand, he felt for a pulse.

"He's still alive," he acknowledged softly.

Michael nodded dumbly.

Dean climbed shakily to his feet and stood for a moment, waiting until he regained his equilibrium. Reaching out, he took the journal out of Michael's trembling fingers. Taking the boy by the elbow he gently turned him toward the door.

"Let's go."

xxxx


	8. Chapter 8

Frail, Ch. 8

_Jo wasn't sure what had wakened her, but she lay in bed, still and listening. The feel of Luke's steady breathing against her neck settled her some, and she relaxed slightly, eyes open and watching in the dark._

_A muffled creak below brought her back to alertness. One of the boys downstairs. She eased out of Luke's arms, pausing when his hand tightened on her elbow._

"_Everything OK?" Mumbled question._

"_Just one of the kids up. I'm gonna check."_

_He nodded, eyes staying closed. "Let me know."_

_Wrapping her robe around her she padded sleepily down the stairs, pausing at the bottom. Toward the back of the house she could see the glow of the light in the guest room. Sounds from the kitchen headed her in that direction._

"_Sam?"_

_He was standing by the sink, back to her, reaching into a cabinet for a glass. _

_Sam jumped and turned, flushing bright red. _

"_Jo. Hey." His voice cracked and he took a couple of quick steps toward her. "I… I'm sorry. We got here so late. I used my key, the one you gave us?" _

_He made it a question—asking for permission that had been given long ago, afraid, she could tell, that it might have been withdrawn. _

"_I didn't want to wake anyone up, and I thought…" _

_He was stumbling over himself in his haste to explain his sudden appearance in her kitchen in the middle of the night. _

_Jo stood blinking in the rush of words. Her brain, never at its best when she first woke up, was also reeling from the sheer surprise of Sam's presence in the house._

"_Honey." She held up a hand._

_Sam stopped. There was a beat of silence. "I'm sorry," he said again, voice unsure, watching her with anxious eyes._

_She shook her head as she approached him, and standing on tiptoe, gave him a hard hug. _

"_I'm so glad to see you."_

_He stiffened momentarily in surprise at her touch, but then folded in over her with a soft, relieved laugh, returning the embrace._

"_Me, too."_

"_Where's Dean?"_

"_Still asleep. In the car."_

_Jo's eyebrows rose._

_Sam rubbed a hand over his eyes. "I just thought I'd get everything set before I woke him." He gestured vaguely toward the cupboard. "Water for his meds."_

"_How is he?"_

"_Better. Much better. Still in some pain, but…" Sam smiled at her. "He gets tired easily." He rolled his eyes. "And he hates it."_

_Jo smiled back at him, sudden joy making it more of a grin._

"_I bet." She watched him closely. "How are you?"_

"_Better." She could see the weariness in his face. He got tired easily, too, she could see. _

"_Sam."_

_Luke stood in kitchen door._

"_Hey, Luke." Sam reached out a hand that Luke grasped before pulling the younger man into a tight hug._

"_What the hell are you doing breaking into my house at 4 o'clock in the morning, boy?" he grumbled, pushing Sam away._

_Sam ducked his head. "Desperate times, man," he said._

_Luke nodded._

"_Where's your brother?"_

"_Car."_

"_Asleep?"_

"_Yeah."_

_Luke didn't press._

"_You got everything?"_

"_One more duffle, I think."_

"_I'll grab it." _

_Luke looked at Jo and left the kitchen._

"_The beds have clean sheets, Sam," she added. "The boys took care of that when we were with y'all, and we left them on. Just in case."_

_Looking a little overwhelmed and incredibly grateful, Sam bobbed his head._

"_Thanks."_

_xxxx _

_Sam met Luke at the car, handing the older man the last bag before easing the trunk lid down. Luke passed him on his way to the door._

"_I'll drop this in y'all's room," he said softly. "See you in the morning." _

"_Night," Sam said as he opened the door to the driver's side of the Impala. He slid in and sat for a minute before he turned to his brother._

_Dean was still completely dead to the world. When they'd gotten in the car, Dean had bunched Sam's hoodie into a pillow and after 10 minutes of squirming had found a comfortable position leaning against the door. He hadn't moved in hours. Sam wasn't sure whether it was physical or emotional exhaustion that was responsible for Dean's concentrated sleep. _

"_Dean." Sam said it in a normal tone of voice, but it seemed to echo in the quiet car. "We're here."_

_Nothing._

"_Dean." A little louder._

_Silence._

_Sam put a hand on Dean's shoulder and gave a little shake._

"_Mmph," shrugging off the hand, not raising his head._

_Sam watched his brother for a moment, considering. He put his finger in his mouth, licking it wet before he removed it and reached over, stuck it in his brother's ear. _

_Dean gave a startled yelp, hand whipping out and around to clamp onto Sam's wrist._

"_What the hell?!" Dean cried, jerking away from the offending digit and cracking his head on the window. He yelped again._

_Sam's bark of laughter was cut short by a sharp gasp when his brother tightened his hold painfully on Sam's wrist._

"_Hey, ow! Get off!" Sam tried to wrench away._

"_What is wrong with you?" Dean snarled, letting go of Sam abruptly. He brought his hand up to rub at the sore spot on the back of his head, scowling ferociously at his brother._

_Sam retracted his arm and rubbed at his wrist with a frown of his own for Dean. Not that he hadn't deserved it, he had to admit._

"_We're here," he said petulantly, although slightly apologetically as well._

_Dean looked around. "Where?"_

_Sam's frown deepened. _

"_Jo's," he said._

"_Oh," Dean said, blinking. The grogginess, briefly dispelled by the adrenaline rush of wrestling with Sam, settled over him again. _

"_Where did you think we were going?" Sam asked, gently now._

_Dean looked at his brother. He shook his head. "I don't really know," he admitted._

"_Is this OK?" Sam asked, suddenly unsure._

_Dean was looking at the house._

"_Dean?"_

_Dean's eyes came back to Sam._

"_Yeah, man. This is fine." _

_He said it with a note of indifference that Sam had heard too much in the last couple of days. Like his brother couldn't be bothered to care one way or another. About anything._

"_Dean…"_

_Dean opened the car door and got out, shutting it firmly on Sam and any conversation that might involve questions as to how he was doing._

"_Is everybody up?" Dean asked, looking at the lights on in the house._

_Sam got slowly out of the car on his side, dropping the subject he knew Dean wouldn't address. Not now anyway._

"_Just Jo, I think. Luke went back to bed." He paused. "I took our stuff in," he said by way of explanation._

_Dean nodded and began to climb the stairs._

_xxxx_

_Jo was coming out of the bedroom as Dean and Sam came in the front door. With a smile, she moved forward._

"_Hey," she said, reaching out for Dean._

"_Hey," he said with a slight smile, returning her hug briefly with a cursory pat, pulling away._

_Jo faltered. She saw confusion on Sam's face. Then regret._

"_I'm sorry we're bothering you so late…," Dean started, a polite distance in his tone._

"_Honey," Jo interrupted him with an small laugh, uneasy with the way he was responding to her, "it's no bother, you know that…"_

_Dean's face had shifted slightly at her use of "honey" and she trailed off. On unfamiliar ground, Jo glanced at Sam, who was watching Dean, uncertain as well._

_She started over. "It's no bother, Dean," she said again quietly. "You and Sam are always welcome here. I hope you know that." _I thought you did.

_He smiled without expression in his eyes. "Thank you."_

_They all three stood in awkward silence._

"_Well," Jo finally said. "I know you boys are tired. I'll let you get to bed."_

"_See you in the morning," Dean said as he edged around her, not meeting her eyes._

_Sam paused, biting his lip as his gaze followed Dean. His eyes came back to Jo._

"_It's been a hard couple of days," he said ruefully._

_Jo nodded, doing her best to swallow back the hurt. Sam looked at her hesitantly, and she knew he was wrestling with whether or not he should say more—apologize for his brother or try to explain._

"_It's OK, Sam," she said, reaching out to squeeze his arm. "See you in the morning."_

_He nodded slightly, thankful for the pass. "Good night."_

_xxxx_

_It was almost 2 in the afternoon before there were signs of life from the Winchesters' room. _

_Jo was sitting in the family room folding clothes when Sam emerged. Tommy, stretched out on the floor, pretending to read a book, jumped to his feet. _

"_Sam!"_

"_Hey, kiddo." Sam returned the enthusiastic embrace._

"_Is Dean awake?"_

"_No, he's still asleep."_

"_Stay away from that door, young man," Jo said sternly, rising to her feet. "Hey, sweetie," she said with a smile for Sam. "Are you hungry?"_

_Sam smiled. "Yeah."_

_In the kitchen, Jo started on pancakes. Tommy hung over the back of Sam's chair._

"_It's not breakfast," Tommy said._

_Jo rolled her eyes. "We've had this conversation before," she said. "You can have pancakes for more than just breakfast."_

"_Why?" he asked._

_Jo ignored the question, refusing to be drawn into the no-win argument. Again._

"_Sam wants pancakes. Sam gets pancakes," she said. That was what had settled it._

_Sam swiveled in his chair to smirk at the younger boy._

_Tommy stuck his lower lip out. _

"_I'd'a asked for enchiladas," he said with distain. _

_Sam closed his eyes, playing up his anticipation._

"_Mmm," he moaned. "Pancakes." He did a passable imitation of Homer Simpson._

_Tommy giggled._

_Jo had just put a stack of four cakes on Sam's plate when Dean came slowly into the room. _

"_Dean!"_

_That young man was subjected to the same treatment his brother had been, and Dean bent down, hugging him close._

"_Be gentle with Dean, Tommy," Jo cautioned before she could stop herself and saw Dean grimace, although she wasn't sure if it was with pain or annoyance._

"_Hey, buddy." _

_Dean looked up at Jo._

"_Good morning," he said softly._

"_Afternoon," Jo returned cautiously, a hesitant smile on her face._

_Dean squinted out the window, left a casual hand on Tommy's shoulder. He chewed thoughtfully on his bottom lip._

"_Pancakes?" Dean asked, glancing down at Tommy._

"_Sam wanted 'em," the boy said with a martyred sigh._

"_Blueberry?" Dean ventured, now giving Jo a quick glance._

_Jo's eyes acknowledged the subtle peace offering, but she kept her face neutral._

"_I might could do that," she acknowledged._

_Dean smiled—not his usual grin, but an improvement—and slid into the chair next to his brother._

"_Coffee?" Sam offered, getting up and heading for the pot._

"_Yeah. Please."_

_Dean sipped at his coffee. It was quiet for a long minute, the only sound the scrape of Sam's fork against his plate and the water running in the sink. Dean sighed._

"_Is your daddy OK?" _

_Tommy had leaned against the table at Dean's elbow, and asked the question that Jo had been mulling over for almost 12 hours, trying to figure out when to ask, how._

_Sam and Dean exchanged looks._

"_Yeah, he's fine." Sam answered for his brother. "He had some business he had to take care of."_

_Tommy nodded, accepting this. He looked at Sam a little apprehensively._

"_Does it hurt?" he asked, pointing uncertainly at Sam's face and the healing scrapes and bruises._

"_Not much any more," Sam said with a smile. "Kind of itches."_

_Tommy nodded, eyes still solemn before he turned his careful attention to Dean._

"_Is your chest OK?" he asked shyly. At Dean's look, Tommy said, uncertain, "Mommy said your lungs got hurt." _

_The use of "mommy" told Jo the depth of Tommy's emotional turmoil, even if he was trying not to show it—the sight of the still raw injuries on the Winchesters' faces making it all too real to the boy how badly his heroes had been hurt._

_Jo put the spatula down, about to move toward him, when Dean reached out a hand and snagged the child by the arm._

"_We're both OK, Tommy," Dean said, pulling the boy between his knees and onto his lap. "I promise, OK?" Awkwardly, Tommy turned into Dean, putting both arms around his neck._

"_Aunt Jo and Uncle Luke were really worried about you," he murmured into Dean's ear, arms tightening._

"_I know," Dean said, eyes meeting Jo's across the kitchen. "They took good care of us at the hospital."_

_Tommy sat back and nodded, perched precariously on Dean's knee._

"_But you had to go home with your Dad." _

"_Yeah. Our Dad was there, so we went home with him."_

_Tommy nodded again. That made sense to him. _

"_Like I would go home with Mom and Uncle Luke, but come visit you," he said easily._

_Dean smiled, eyes cutting to Sam who was smiling wryly._

"_Just like that." Dean said, giving the boy a wink._

_Tommy slid off Dean's lap._

"_I'm gonna go get Michael and Jake," he said suddenly and dashed out of the room. The adults in the kitchen heard the front door slam behind him, Jo closing her eyes as the windows rattled with the impact._

"_Do you want four pancakes, too, Dean?" she asked dropping that number of spoonfuls of batter onto the griddle._

_Dean eyed Sam's rapidly emptying plate. He shrugged._

_Jo raised an eyebrow._

"_He'll probably only eat two," Sam answered for his brother around a mouthful. "I'll have the rest."_

_Dean frowned at Sam. "I could eat four," he said._

_Sam rolled his eyes. "Whatever, dude." Sam was swirling his last bite of pancake around in the syrup. "You haven't eaten a full meal since you got out of the hospital."_

_Dean's eyes slanted to Jo, and his scowl deepened. _

"_I can eat four," he defended, getting up and heading to the fridge. When his brother's back was to him, Sam looked at Jo and grinned, triumphant. _

_She shook her head and turned back to the stove quickly before Dean could see her smile. He must not be feeling himself if he hadn't caught on that Sam was playing him. She'd seen Sam in action before—manipulating his big brother was old hat to the younger boy, but Jo had never seen Sam get anything past Dean that Dean hadn't been perfectly well aware of. For Dean not to have realized what had just happened…._

_Dean set the milk carton down on the table with a "thunk." He was watching Sam belligerently._

"_Fine," Sam said. "I'll take a couple more, Jo," he said sweetly._

"_Things are really OK with your dad?" she asked. She kept her back to the table, not addressing either boy specifically, messing with the pancakes as they cooked._

_Sam was the one who answered._

"_Yeah, he's fine. Restless, you know. And we're OK—wanted to get back on the road."_

But you stopped here.

"_Your dad could have come. I know he and I butted heads there at the end, but he'd've be welcome. He still is." _

_She tried to sound as sincere as she wanted to be._

_There was a beat of silence._

"_We know, Jo," Sam said softly. "And we appreciate it, but… Its OK." Vague reassurance. She realized that was all she was probably going to get._

_She nodded her head, flipping the pancakes._

"_Your order's almost up."_

_xxxx_

_When Luke had arrived at the hospital, Jo had gotten in the car almost incoherent with rage. She'd had plenty of time to stew after the Winchesters had driven away._

"_They're gone," she'd said at Luke's puzzled, concerned look, slamming the car door with enough force to make Luke's ears pop. "He decided they were leaving, they checked out and they're gone. Dean checked himself out AMA. Against Medical Advice, Luke. AGAINST MEDICAL ADVICE!" _

_If she were a yeller, she'd have been screaming. As it was, her voice was raised, shaking with worry and anger._

"_I cannot BELIEVE that man! Sam and I begged him to reconsider, just to give Dean a little more time to heal. But, no. 'Dean's a grown man. He can make his own decisions.' With this stupid, proud smile on his face as Dean was getting out of bed. Like he couldn't SEE how much pain his son was in. Like…"_

_The rant had continued unbroken for awhile, tears of frustration coming and going as she'd spoken._

_Luke hadn't interrupted, had let her vent, occasionally making small sounds that indicated he'd been listening. _

_Listening, she'd known from experience, not necessarily agreeing._

"_Stop mmm-hmmming me," she'd finally snapped._

_Luke's eyes had stayed on the road in front of him._

"_Mmm-hmmm," he'd said. A ghost of a smile on his lips._

_She'd scowled._

"_You're not funny," she'd said._

"_Mmm-hmmm," he'd said again, grin widening. He was cracking himself up._

"_Are you telling me you don't think John Winchester is a complete jackass?" she'd demanded._

_He'd made a face. "Not necessarily."_

_That had been all she needed to jump back into her diatribe. "I…"_

"_Josie." _

_Luke's tone, patient and regretful, had stopped her._

"_Honey, I'm not saying that I agree with how he behaved, but…" he'd paused. "But, I think you're not taking into account John's perspective in all this."_

_Jo had frowned. She didn't want to consider John's perspective—he was wrong. And an ass. And didn't love his sons as much as she did. He… _

_She'd sighed. _

Crap.

_Luke had taken that for what it was—a sign that she was listening._

"_He could have lost both his kids in that accident, and he came frighteningly close to losing Dean for sure. As far as I can tell, he hadn't seen the boys in months, they've been estranged, and he comes-to with a couple of strangers taking care of his sons in a way, it seems like, he hasn't been able to. Not for a long time."_

_Luke had glanced over at her._

"_The way things are between him and Sam right now, I think if John told Sam to get out of a burning building, the kid would ask 'why'—and in a tone that would make me want to slap him silly. But Sam's trying to anticipate what you want, and whatever you ask, he does with a smile."_

He does it for you, too, _she'd thought with an ache._

"_That hurts, Josie, and we both know it. And with Dean…"_

_Luke had trailed off._

"_There's so much going on there under the surface that I can't even begin to comprehend what's been happening with their relationship. But whatever it is, Dean clearly worships his father. And John, no matter what his behavior might indicate to us, loves those boys. I just…"_

_They'd gotten back to the motel by then, and Luke had pulled into the parking space in front of their room._

"_I just think that John was hurting and scared and feeling threatened, and not being a particularly socially adept kind of guy, pretty much made a mess of things. And he knew it. I think the only way he could figure out to fix it was to retreat. Take his boys and abandon the field. Try to regroup."_

_Luke had turned off the car, and they'd sat in silence for a long minute._

"_Did I not make clear to you at the beginning of my little tirade, that I wasn't looking for you to be the voice of reason?" Jo had asked. Her tone had been a pout, but he'd been able to see the grudging acceptance of what he'd said on her face._

_He'd smiled. "Nope."_

"_My bad, then," she'd said._

_He'd reached out and taken her hand in his. _

"_I love you."_

"_Mmm-hmmm," she'd responded, leaning over to give him a kiss._

_xxxx_

_For almost five days, Dean hadn't let Jo near him. _

_After the first awkward hug, when he'd pulled out of her embrace so quickly, flinching at a casual endearment, she'd backed away, had given him the space he'd clearly wanted._

_But Jo's heart had ached, watching Dean hold himself apart from Sam, avoid her. She'd been slightly encouraged that he hadn't withdrawn completely, throwing himself into the latest house project, spending as much time as possible outside, helping Luke build the frame for the screen on a new back porch. Luke had assured her that he wasn't asking Dean to do anything that didn't involve the boy doing more than sitting in one place to hammer or paint, but still she'd worried. _

_In spite of her concern, Jo had decided to let him be, spending her own time in the usual way – at the motel and in the diner. As she'd gone about her daily routine, Jo had been surprised and a little touched to find herself doggedly trailed by Sam, who had seemed oddly unwilling to let her out of his sight. _

_She hadn't been sure exactly what one did with a clingy, 6 foot 5, 23 year old, so she'd let him be as well, listening to him process through his emotions from the accident and its aftermath, doing her best to reassure. In his way, Sam had provided Jo her own measure of comfort simply by letting her care for him._

_From Sam, she'd gotten glimpses of what had happened during their time with their father, but again—and as always—only in frustrating generalities. Sam had recognized that John was doing his best to repair his relationship with his sons, but the younger boy had still struggled, confused by his father's seemingly erratic behavior—one minute trying to reconnect, the next focused on some unnamed (to Jo) objective. Dean's response, according to Sam, had been to shut down, refusing to be pulled into John's mood swings, trying to keep the peace, but hurting, Sam knew, not just physically, but emotionally as well._

_In the end, there had been a confrontation between John and Dean that Sam had not witnessed, but that had resulted in the three men parting ways the following day. Sam had asked Dean about it once and not gotten an answer. He hadn't asked again. Not because he hadn't wanted to, but because Jo realized the younger boy was starting to understand that pushing at his brother at a time like this didn't make Dean open up – it just made him lockdown tighter. _

_So for the last few days, Jo had done her best to give the Winchester boys what they seemed to need from her the most—absence for Dean and presence for Sam. She was fairly confident that it was only Sam's tolerance for her fussing over him that had kept her from hovering over Dean until he'd stabbed her. Or just left._

_At the moment, she was making her nightly rounds, checking on her nephews and wandering downstairs, straightening as she went, more out of habit than any real need. She was surprised to see the blue-gray glow of the television flickering in the family room. _

_Jo stopped as she came into the room, and she sighed when she realized that Dean asleep on the couch. Sam had mentioned that he didn't think his brother was sleeping well, but this was the first evidence of it that Jo had seen. Dean was on his side, curled toward the screen that projected the black and white movements of a late-night movie across it. His arms were crossed tightly over his torso, his knees drawn up slightly. Deep, even breaths moved his chest in a steady rhythm, dark lashes sweeping sleep-flushed cheeks._

_In spite of herself, Jo crept close and sat gingerly on the sofa next to him, watching for just a moment before her fingers reached out to smooth his hair, then skim softly across his cheek. _

_Green eyes blinked open._

_Jo's heart stuttered. _

"_Hey, baby," she whispered, caught. She moved her hand to rest it on his shoulder, rubbing soothingly. "I didn't mean to wake you." _

"'_S OK," he said, voice thick. He didn't withdraw from the contact, and Jo felt the tight embarrassment in her heart ease. "Wasn't asleep," he murmured, even as his eyes slipped closed again. _

_Jo smiled as he drifted back to sleep. He looked different in his sleep, face relaxed, at ease. Without the too old eyes haunting her and the lines of care and hurt etched around his mouth, he seemed more of an age with Michael, still innocent, largely untouched. Beautiful. Achingly vulnerable. _

_Jo throat closed against the pain in her chest and as she stood, she leaned over, kissing him softly on the temple, just at his hairline._

"_Sleep tight, my love," she breathed, putting her hand gently on his head as she straightened. She found one of the throw blankets the boys scattered around the room and draped it over him before she made her way to the kitchen._

_Opening the fridge, she found what she was looking for and pulled it out, setting the casserole dish on the counter as she looked for a bowl. _

_She'd just scooped a helping of lasagna out of the dish, when a soft sound behind her made her turn. Dean stood in the doorway, rumpled and bleary. He cleared his throat._

"_Are you sharing?" he asked._

_In answer, she reached into the cabinet and pulled out another bowl._

_Shuffling into the room, Dean lowered himself into a chair at the table. With a heavy sigh, he leaned forward, resting his head on his crossed forearms._

"_Heated up or cold?" she asked._

"_Cold," he mumbled, not moving._

_She nodded to herself and put what was left back into the fridge, carrying over both bowls. She put the dish with its spoon next to the dark head on her table, sitting._

_With a slight grunt, Dean lifted his face, sniffing absently at the bowl in front of him before he picked it up. In a silence more comfortable than she'd experienced with him in days, they ate their late night snack._

_When they were done, Dean took the dishes to the sink, rinsing them out and sticking them in the dishwasher. Jo rose and flipped off the kitchen light, joining Dean as he walked toward the den._

"_Go to bed, Dean," she suggested with a smile at him before she started to head back to the stairs and her own room. _

"_Jo?"_

"_Yeah, baby?" She bit her lip as she turned, regretful that she'd used the endearment again when it made him uncomfortable._

_Something in his face eased when his eyes met hers and a small smile ghosted over his lips before his head went down._

"_Thank you," he said softly._

_Jo was confused. _ _"You're welcome…" she started, clearly not sure what he was talking about._

_Dean started to talk over her. "Thank you for … for not…" he stumbled to a halt. "Just thanks for not, I guess, getting mad … or something … the last few days." His head came up and troubled eyes met hers. "I'm sorry that I… I needed to think about things and I couldn't…. It wasn't you…"_

_And suddenly she understood._

"_Honey…" Jo interrupted him and felt the tears start into her eyes, but she didn't let them fall. "Dean, it's OK. I understand. I really do." _

_She smiled encouragingly at him, just a step bringing her close enough to touch him, and she did, reaching out to put a hand on his arm. _

_Dean twitched under the contact, and abruptly he took his own step forward, unexpectedly hugging her fiercely, startling Jo with the suddenness and intensity of his embrace._

_Her arms came around him reflexively and she held on, rubbing her hands up and down his back, instinctively trying to soothe. _

"_Hey, hey, hey," she murmured, concern seeping into her tone. "It's OK, sweetie, it's OK." She laughed a little unsteadily, uncertain. "Dean, I promise it's OK." _

_His grip tightened briefly around her and she felt the nod of his head against her neck, before he pulled back, face pink with self-consciousness and what seemed like a certain amount of surprise at his own actions. She kept a steadying hand on his arm._

_Dean cleared his throat and took another small step back, although not to the point where he lost contact with her. _

"_OK. Um. Good night," he said._

_Jo bit her lip, struggling suddenly not to start giggling with relief. Or amusement at the mortification on his face. She patted him gently before dropping her hand._

"_Good night, sweetheart. See you in the morning."_

_He nodded and pivoted, almost sprinting down the hall toward his room. _

_Shaking her head and feeling much lighter of heart, Jo made her way back upstairs._

_xxxx_

_Dean eased the door shut behind him and moved carefully across the room to his bed. Sam didn't stir, the sound of his heavy breathing unchanged as Dean climbed under the covers._

_Settling, Dean felt the flush of embarrassment return as he remembered his interaction with Jo. _What the hell, Dean?_ he thought. _

_He'd felt like a complete jackass the last week, avoiding Jo, ducking Sam. He'd known that the self-imposed isolation was hurting and confusing the both of them, but he hadn't been able to face them. For whatever reason, Luke's ability to appear unconcerned had been the balm that Dean had needed. Try as they might to act like they weren't – and Sam really didn't – Jo's and Sam's worry just made Dean feel more on edge. He'd needed to get his feet under him again, and he couldn't do that with people anxious for him, so he'd kept out of their way, healing the best way he knew how. But even as he'd done it, Dean hadn't been sure._

_Tonight he'd felt the brush of lips against his skin as he'd slept, heard the words whispered above him as he'd wakened. _

_And he'd felt ashamed._

_And awed. That she would love him in spite of himself. _

_The relief that Jo had understood, had forgiven him before he'd even asked had overwhelmed Dean, and he'd reacted without thought, reaching out to hug her, to reestablish the contact he'd denied himself, had longed for._

_Dean was just glad that if he was going to have to hug someone, it had been Jo and not Sam he'd encountered first. Sam would never have let him hear the end of it. _

_His head turned toward Sam in the next bed. Sam's forgiveness wouldn't be as easy to come by as Jo's had been, but it wouldn't be that hard either. His little brother had never held a grudge against him as long as Dean could remember. Against Dad? Hell yeah. But not against Dean. Sam had always been generous with him that way, and Dean felt the sense of thankfulness wash over him again. _

_The days preceding their arrival at Jo's had been unsettling and harder than any hunt Dean had ever been on. Dad had alternated between a fierce, obsessive determination to get moving again and an almost pathological desire to reconnect with Sam and Dean. It had been surreal._

_The low point had been a scene that had started with a snide comment from Dad about Jo, followed up with a cutting remark about the fickleness of his sons' love for their mother. Sam's rage at the unfairness and meanness of the accusation had rivaled the fury that had ultimately sent Sam barreling out the door toward Stanford. Dean had jumped to Jo's defense as quickly and as heatedly as his brother had, jolted momentarily out of the determined silence he'd thus far maintained in the face of his father's deliberate needling; but the words had stung, leaving behind a discomfort and a guilt that Dean had had a hard time shaking. _

_The ferocity of the boys' reaction, and the stricken look on Dean's face at the charge of disloyalty had taken much of the wind out of John's sails. Dean had seen the regret flash across his father's face almost the moment the words had left his mouth. But even the fact that his father had backed off as quickly as he had, hadn't made things easier. If anything, John's sudden, tacit understanding of the boys' – Dean's – attachment to Jo had made Dean feel worse. John's complicitness somehow taking the betrayal to an even deeper level._

_There'd been a heavy, awkward silence in the aftermath, and the following day, John's determination to get on the road again had taken precedent over everything else that had come before. Which had set Sam off on Dean's recovery and John's obsessive behavior. _

_John had ignored Sam's protectiveness of Dean, focusing instead on Sam's pigheadedness, his unwillingness to have killed the Demon when he'd had the chance, and his refusal to follow orders at this or any other time since he'd hit adolescence._

_The same fight. Again._

"_Sam." _

_Dean's quiet voice had slipped into a break in the yelling when his younger brother had paused to draw a breath. Dean hadn't had the energy to fight to be heard over his father and his brother, so he'd sat in silence, waiting for his chance._

_Instantly responsive, Sam had turned to his brother, hot eyes cooling as he took in Dean's pale face._

"_Are you OK? Do you…?"_

_Dean had almost smiled._

"_Let me talk to Dad for a minute, will you?"_

_Sam had paused, and his eyes had narrowed. He'd snorted, incredulous._

"_Are you sending me out of the room?"_

_Dean had sighed, letting the weariness show. He'd met Sam's eyes and his brother's had dropped. Dean had felt a brief pang of guilt at using Sam's concern for him, but he'd needed the time with their father._

"_Fine," Sam had said grudgingly. He'd shot one last, warning glare at John and slouched out the door._

_John's scowl hadn't lessened when his youngest child was gone._

"_God, he's stubborn," John had gritted._

_Dean had snorted._

"_Yeah. I wonder where he got that from."_

_John had not been amused._

"_We don't have time for your smart-ass…"_

"_Dad." _

_Dean had interrupted, swallowing back the sigh of impatience, knowing that it would only get him accused of taking Sam's side. He'd opened his mouth to say more, but was cut off._

"_If he's going to be a part of this hunt, he's going to have to get on board," John had ground out. "I don't have time…"_

"_And you think yelling at him's the way to get Sammy to do to anything?" Dean had asked, amusement and disbelief in his voice._

_The look his father had given him had been closed, hard and unreadable. Even to the son who knew him better than anyone._

"_I'm not gonna coddle him" (or you). "If we're going to go after this thing as a team" (not a family), "I can't afford to have him question my every goddamn word!" John's voice had risen to a shout. "You may run your outfit like a democracy, but I don't."_

_Dean had swallowed, jaw clenching, teeth aching at the pressure._

"_That's not how it is, Dad. Sam's got good ideas—he's smart as hell. You know that. I don't… We work as a team."_

"_Yeah. Well. On my team, I run the show. Period."_

_There had been an odd belligerent look on John's face and Dean had blinked, trying to figure out what has shifted. John had never pushed back at him this hard. He'd always let Dean be the cooler head, conceded grudgingly, saving face._

"_He's going to keep his mouth shut and do as he's told."_

"_Dad…"_

"_I won't have him with us if it's gonna be an argument every time I give an order."_

"_Dad." _

_There'd been no getting a word in._

"_We're leaving him behind if he won't agree to do what I say, Dean. Do you understand me?"_

_Dean had looked at his father in shock._

"_I'm not leaving him, Dad."_

"_You damn well will if I tell you to," John had growled, unyielding. _

_Dean had felt the weight of the decision settle deep into his bones, pulling him down, numbing him._

"_No," Dean had said, "I won't."_

_xxxx_

_Jo leaned back in her chair at the kitchen table, feet propped on another, a glass of wine in one hand, a copy of Harry Potter in the other. She was way behind everyone else in the family, but she was determined to work her way through the series. At the rate she was going, she figured she might be caught up by the time the last book was published. Maybe. She cracked open the cover, smiling and shaking her head at the Coke stain on the first page._

"_The villagers of Little Hangleton still called it 'the Riddle House,' even though it had been many years since the Riddle family had lived there."_

_The phone rang._

_Jo closed her eyes. _

_It rang again._

_She waited._

"_Is someone going to get that?" she yelled. No answer—for her or the phone._

_It rang again._

_She gritted her teeth and glared balefully at the offending object._

_The shrill peal sounded another time._

Just because you ring, _she told the phone sullenly, _doesn't mean I have to answer you.

_Another ring._

Aaaaaargh!

_She groaned it in her head as she jumped for the phone._

"_Hello," she answered, trying hard not to sound as annoyed as she felt. It wasn't the caller's fault. Unless it was a telemarketer. And then, by golly…_

"_Jo?"_

_The voice, deep with a hint of a drawl, drove the breath out of her lungs._

"_John?"_

"_Yeah," he answered, surprisingly hesitant. "Hey."_

"_Hey," she responded._

_There was a long uneasy silence._

"_Do you want me to get one of the boys?" she ventured._

"_So they're there?" _

"_Yes," she said gently. "They're here. Did you not…?"_

"_I figured, when they left, they'd probably head your way."_

"_Oh."_

_There was another silence._

"_How are they?"_

_She could hear the ache in his voice._

"_They're fine, John."_

_There was the sound of a shaky breath being drawn._

"_Yeah?"_

"_Yes, John, they're fine, I promise. Healing, getting stronger. Dean's still moving a little slower than he usually does, but you could only tell if you knew him. Sam's pretty much back at full strength, driving everyone crazy with his energy and his talk. Except for Tommy, of course, who finally has someone who can keep up with him again."_

_An almost silent chuckle from over the line._

"_I bet."_

_She smiled._

"_Let me get them for you."_

"_No."_

_She jumped a little at his tone._

"_John…"_

"_Please." _

_He might have been begging._

"_John." _

_She could have been begging herself._

"_Jo." It was the first time he'd ever truly said her name. "Please," he repeated, "it's better this way."_

"_Better how, John? They miss you. Dean…"_

_A choking sound, quickly swallowed._

"_I can't… I can't explain it to you, but this way… . If I'm not around, Dean can protect Sammy—keep him safe. Sam'll do what Dean says, obey his brother like he won't obey me. Not any more." There was a gentleness, an acceptance in his voice. "Not for a long time."_

_Jo was quiet. Safe. She'd heard that from Dean, gotten hints of it from Sam._

"_Please don't tell them I called. I just needed to know they were OK."_

_She nodded against the phone. "I understand, John. But…" She didn't want to lie to them._

_Understanding, he tried again._

"_If they don't ask…?"_

_She sighed._

"_Will you trust me?" she asked softly._

_The silence, which had been significant before, stretched out even longer._

"_Yeah," he finally whispered. "Yeah, I will."_

_Jo swallowed back tears._

"_Thank you," she said._

"_Thank you," he said. "Thank you for taking care of my boys."_

"_We love them," she said softly._

"_I know," he responded, and she could hear the break in his voice. "I know."_

_xxxx_


	9. Chapter 9

Frail, Chapter 9

When they got within sight of the car, Dean and Michael saw Tommy leap away from the Impala, running full-out as he hurled himself at his older brother. Jake was only a few step behind, and Michael returned their embraces fiercely.

"Are y'all OK? Are you?" Michael's voice shook on the questions, and Dean could hear Tommy's and Jake's muffled reassurances.

"It's OK. It's over," Michael was repeating. "It's OK."

Dean, relieved that the younger boys were all ambulatory and not bleeding profusely from any obvious wounds, moved past the small huddle, hurrying to the car. He peered in at Sam, who was stretched out in the back seat, leaning against the far door, eyes closed, face like a ghost's.

"Sammy?" Dean's voice, breathless, startled his brother.

Sam's eyes opened sluggishly, slow to focus on Dean. "Dean?" The word was anxious and slightly slurred. "Are you OK?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Dean responded. He looked at his brother critically. "You?"

Sam nodded carefully. "'m fine."

Dean didn't believe the lie for a second. He turned around.

"Let's go," he barked, looking back over his shoulder at the knot of younger boys.

Tommy had climbed Michael like a pole and was clinging to his older brother's neck like a limpet. Michael's expression seemed to indicate that he didn't have the slightest intention of turning his younger brother loose anytime soon.

"Jake has the keys," Michael said, looking at Dean, arms wrapped securely around Tommy.

The middle boy was pale, pressed close to his brothers, and he fumbled in his pocket for the keys.

"You drive," Dean said shortly to Jake, sliding into the back with Sam. The other boys clambered into the front, Jake behind the wheel, Michael in the passenger seat with an arm tight around Tommy next to him.

"What's the damage?" Dean asked his brother.

Dean perched on the edge of the bench seat, leaving Sam room to stretch out behind him, listing into the corner, watching his older brother with glassy eyes. Dean scooted forward, taking Sam's chin in his hand.

Sam submitted to the practiced inspection with a sigh, Dean's brusque concern and rough palm on his skin familiar comforts to Sam. The younger boy's eyelids sagged, body unconsciously relaxing in the presence of his brother.

"Mostly bruises," Sam murmured. "Some broken ribs, I think." He winced. "Head hurts."

Dean nodded, running quick fingers through Sam's hair, checking for knots underneath. His hand came away bloody.

"Jeez, Sam. How many walls did you let that thing throw you into?"

Sam's face was gray, skin pulled taut and white at his mouth and at the corners of his eyes.

"Too many," he whispered, swallowing. Sam opened his eyes and squinted at his brother.

"How 'bout you?" he asked, eying the trickle of blood coming from Dean's hairline.

"Just a couple," Dean admitted.

"Anything broken?" Sam asked, eyes sliding shut again.

"Nah." Dean rolled his aching shoulders. "But I'm gonna hurt like a son of a bitch tomorrow."

Sam huffed out a weak laugh. "You and me both."

Dean rested a couple of fingers briefly at the pulse point on Sam's throat, frowning at the rapid beat he found there.

"Take it easy, Sammy," he said quietly, resting the flat of his hand on Sam's neck, trying to calm the racing of his brother's heart. Sam's head moved slightly in acknowledgment, and Dean saw Sam's Adam's apple bob, face tensing.

"You OK?" Dean asked quietly, concerned.

"Head," Sam said hoarsely. "Just… Let me…"

"Is it a vision?" Dread closed Dean's throat. He moved his hand to his brother's shoulder.

Sam didn't open his eyes, but shook his head minutely, breathing something that Dean barely heard, but recognized as a denial.

Dean nodded, realizing that what Sam really wanted some space – even if it could only be figurative at the moment. "OK," he said, patting him gently.

With a last, concerned look at Sam's drawn face, Dean turned away from his brother, leaning forward to rest a hand on the top of Tommy's head, just visible over the front seat.

"You OK, tiger?" he asked softly.

Tommy turned under the light touch, nodding solemnly.

Dean lifted a finger to brush at the darkening bruise high on the boy's cheekbone.

"You're going to have a hell of a black eye, you know that?"

"Yeah?" Tommy asked, smile tremulous.

"Yeah," Dean responded, smoothing a hand over the boy's head.

He turned to look at Michael.

"How about you, kiddo?"

Michael's face was a mess with a bloody nose, split lip, abrasions and a red welt next to his eye that was going to give Tommy's shiner some pretty stiff competition once it blossomed. Dean wondered about Michael's ribs, as well, given how the demon had pounded on him. Tommy tilted his face toward Michael's, brow wrinkling in anxiety.

"I'm OK," the older boy said, mumbling around a lip that was already swelling.

"Yeah?" Dean considered. "Look at me a second."

Michael shifted in his seat, attempting to face Dean when his gaze suddenly moved past Dean to Sam.

At the same moment, Dean felt Sam stiffen beside him, his younger brother's body going rigid along the back seat.

Dean turned sharply, focus back on Sam, who groaned low in his throat, now twisting toward his brother, trying to tuck into a ball.

"Sam?"

"Dean." Sam's hoarse voice was barely audible. "Please…"

Curling in on himself around Dean, Sam pressed his face against the outside of his brother's jean clad leg.

"Sammy, what…?" Dean's voice broke, hands hovering for a moment, helpless. He fisted one loosely in Sam's hair, the other under Sam's chin easing his brother's head back, trying to look into his face.

"God, please. Make it stop. Dean…" Sam's hands came to his head, fingers clutching at his temples, tangling with Dean's.

"Jake." Dean's eyes met Michael's first, panic quickly suppressed before he turned his gaze to the boy behind the wheel. "Floor it."

xxxx

Their arrival at the small hospital was a blur—semi-familiar faces, all too familiar questions, Sam pried out of his grasp and wheeled away; Tommy and Michael, both bloodied, swirled in a different direction and Dean left standing, Jake beside him, swaying in the aftermath.

"Jake?"

Dean felt the boy next to him flinch, move closer, and Dean turned his head toward the new voice.

Dean didn't recognize the woman who had taken the boy by the elbow, trying to ease him from Dean's side, watching Dean warily.

Jake sidled away from her, and Dean put himself in front of Jake, blocking this new threat.

"What do you want?" he asked, more gruffly than was probably necessary.

Astonishingly, the woman had managed to keep a grip on Jake's arm, not deterred by the man in front of her.

"I was going to have the doctor take a look at him," she said carefully.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked.

Her chin came up slightly. "Velma Adams," she answered.

"Emily's mom," from Jake.

"Oh," Dean faltered, not sure then why Jake hadn't gone with her. He looked at the boy with a slight frown.

"I want to stay here," he insisted.

"Jacob, your aunt's going to want the doctors to make sure you're OK," Mrs. Adams said gently, still trying to pull the boy from behind Dean.

"I am OK," Jake said unsteadily. "Sam's hurt. I don't…"

The woman's eyes snapped to Dean.

"Sam," she said, suddenly letting go of Jake and stepping back. "Are you Dean?"

"Jake?"

Jo ran into the waiting room, trailed by another woman in blue scrubs. Jo pulled her nephew into her arms as she looked at Dean.

"They said Tommy was here? And Michael? What…" She pulled back from Jake, running quick, assessing eyes over him. "Are you OK?" she asked urgently.

The boy nodded.

Her eyes went back to Dean and narrowed now at the sight of the bruising on his face, the blood in his hair.

"What…?" she moved toward him, reaching out a hand. Dean blinked at the soft touch, the frantic expression.

"Where's Sam?" she asked sharply.

Dean swallowed. "They took him. He's…"

From behind an examination room door, Tommy and Michael rushed forward.

"Mom!"

Jo's hand dropped as she turned toward Tommy's voice with a cry. She was across the room with him in her arms before Dean even fully registered that the younger boys had entered the waiting area.

"Are you OK?" She was crying as she held Tommy, asking repeatedly, not really giving him time to answer. "Are you OK?"

Tommy was nodding into her neck, clinging to her, silent.

Finally, Jo calmed down enough to draw away and subject Tommy to the same careful inspection she'd given Jake.

"Oh, baby," she whispered, when she saw the bruise on his cheek. She pressed cool lips to the swelling, raising her eyes to look around. "Let's get you some ice …"

She caught sight of her oldest nephew, eyes widening at his appearance.

"Michael," she gasped, straightening. "Honey, what…?" Reaching for him now, distress and confusion plain on her face.

"I'm OK, Mom," he reassured her with an attempt at a smile that made him wince when it pulled at his split lip.

"I suspect he's right, but he doesn't know for sure since I haven't finished examining him," said a dry voice.

Jo now looked at the young woman who had joined them.

"What?" Jo turned to the new person who had joined them.

"I'm Dr. Little," said the woman. "I was in the middle of checking on Michael, here, when he suddenly fled the scene."

"I'm fine," Michael reiterated, scowling at the doctor. Jo looked at him with worry.

"Aunt Jo, I am." He appealed to the highest authority in the room.

"He's got some bruises on his chest that indicate he may have some broken ribs," the doctor interjected.

"Mom," Michael tried again.

"Sweetie…"

"Let her finish looking at you, Michael," Dean said softly.

Jo's eyes, flicking between Michael and Dr. Little, shifted suddenly to Dean in surprise.

Dean was talking to Michael. "You took some pretty hard hits, kiddo. You need to let her check you out." Firm, not to be denied.

The younger man's shoulders slumped.

"Jake, go with your brother."

Jake went to Michael's side, pausing with a hesitant look at the older boy before he moved to slip an arm around his brother's waist. Grimacing, Michael put his arm over Jake's shoulder, leaning on him slightly as they followed the doctor.

"Dean, what happened?" Jo's voice was suddenly filled with dread.

Dean's eyes, shadowed with regret and resolve, met hers.

"We got our brothers back."

xxxx

Jo had only been able to stand and stare at Dean's pronouncement. She'd just opened her mouth to ask him what the hell that meant when Matt Rodriguez and Doug Seewald came into the emergency room, and the chaos that had been almost manageable before suddenly began to spin out of control.

Orders and questions and Dean telling Matt that Gene Potter was still alive and Doug dashing back out the door and Dean refusing to leave the hospital to be questioned. Gruff voices and raised and finally Dean being led to a corner of the emergency room where he could be interviewed.

"We'll need to take statements from the boys, Jo. Don't leave the hospital," Matt had been sharp, frustration and exhaustion giving his tone an unaccustomed bite.

She'd only been able to nod, overwhelmed and frozen. She stood for a minute, struggling to gather herself. Small fingers wormed their way into her palm, and Jo shook herself, looking down at her youngest nephew. Tommy was staring at Dean and Matt, face troubled by the agitation he saw there, blinking uncertainly at them. He leaned against his aunt, grip tightening on hers.

"Hey, baby," she said. A pale face tilted up to her. "Let's go find your brothers."

She guided Tommy into the examining room that Michael and Jake had disappeared into. Watching the woman take care of Michael prompted Jo to ask the doctor to give the younger two boys another going over as well. She was almost wringing her hands as Dr. Little ran careful hands over the boys, poking and prodding, pronouncing them fit, if shaken.

They'd have to wait on Michael's x-rays for a final verdict, but the doctor went ahead and wrapped his chest, handing Jo prescriptions for pain killers and antibiotics for her oldest, Tommy's minor injuries requiring nothing more than ice. Jake had stood by silently, actually embarrassed at having escaped the bloodshed visited on the family over the last 24 hours.

"Not even a black eye," he'd mumbled. "Nobody's going to believe I was there." Disgruntled.

"I'll hit you," Michael grinned, almost serious, mostly sympathetic.

Jake smiled back at his brother, rueful. "No thanks," he said.

Michael shrugged, wincing slightly, before he sobered.

"How's Luke?" he asked Jo abruptly.

Jo felt the fear, briefly supplanted by relief and confusion at the appearance of the boys, slam back into her.

"There's no change," she said.

Tommy blinked from his brother to his aunt.

"What's wrong with Luke?" He was sitting on the examining table with his brother, and Michael put an arm around his shoulders as he met his aunt's gaze.

Jo drew in a shaky breath.

"Honey, Mr. Potter … shot Luke before he took you and Sam," she said gently.

"He's shot?" Tommy's voice was high.

"He's going to be fine, sweetie," she said as reassuringly as she could, moving closer to give him a hug. She didn't look at his brothers. "He's going to be fine. I promise."

_Please don't let me be telling him a lie. _

_Please._

xxxx

Dean answered Matt's sharp questions with bite of his own, eyes constantly straying to the swinging door Sam had disappeared behind.

"What the hell were you thinking taking those kids out there?"

The official part of the interview was over, and all that was left was Matt's rage at the danger the boys had been exposed to.

Dean clenched his jaw at the fury in the deputy's voice, knew it was justified. But he didn't back down, wouldn't drop his gaze.

"We didn't know for sure that they were out there. I told you we were just going to check, but Tommy came running out of the house…," he gritted. "What the hell was I supposed to do, Matt? Leave him there while I made sure Michael and Jake…"

"You shouldn't have been out there in the first place," Matt exploded, turning heads in the waiting room towards them. "If you'd…"

"Yeah, well I didn't," Dean cut him off. "And they're safe, and I'm tired of listening to this crap." Dean pushed off the wall he'd been leaning against, essentially backed into a corner by the younger man, and shouldered past him. He strode up to the admitting desk.

"Is there any news on my brother?" he asked, only barely keeping his voice under control.

The man behind the counter shook his head.

"I'm sorry, sir. Nothing yet."

Ignoring Matt, who was still glaring at him from across the room, Dean paced toward the door that Jo and the boys had disappeared through. Before he thought about what he was doing he reached for the handle of the door, but then he stopped himself, turned, flinging himself down on the row of uncomfortable chairs that lined the wall.

Matt crossed the room to stand in front of Dean.

Jaw clenched, the younger man stared down at Dean.

"I hope Sam's OK," he said tightly. "Tell Jo I'll be checking back in." And with a last dark look, he left the hospital.

A few minutes later Jo and the boys returned, Michael holding himself stiffly and Tommy clinging to Jo's hand.

"Have you heard anything on Sam?" Jo asked softly as they approached.

Dean shook his head, fear standing out plainly on his face.

"Let me see what I can find out," she said. "Y'all stay here with Dean, boys." She bent down to give Tommy a swift kiss on the top of his head. "I'll be right back."

Tommy let go of his aunt and climbed into the chair next to Dean. He inched over until Dean had to raise his arm to let the boy press into his side. With a sigh, Dean draped his arm over the boy, pulling him close. He dropped his face into Tommy's hair, closing his eyes.

"You OK?" he whispered.

Tommy nodded. "Luke's hurt," he said.

"I know," Dean answered heavily. He raised his head to look at Michael. "How's he doing?"

"Aunt Jo said no change."

Dean nodded, lowering his head again, resting his cheek on the top of Tommy's head. Jake and Michael sank into other chairs, and they sat in a silent row, waiting.

It was only a couple of minutes before Jo was back, face grave.

"They're running some tests, but they may need to operate, Dean." She sat down in the chair next to him. "The doctor will be out soon."

"Did they say…?"

"Something about trauma to his head," she said gingerly, watching his face.

Grim, Dean closed his eyes, nodding his understanding.

"How…?" she started.

"It tossed him around pretty bad," Dean said in a low voice.

"He hit Sam," Tommy said softly from his place at Dean's side.

Jo swallowed.

"Dean?"

Dr. Jones stepped through the swinging doors, making a beeline for the family. Dean let out a sigh of relief at the sight of the familiar older man.

Dean stood, as did Jo, and the doctor took them both by the elbows, drawing them to a small examining room, the boys trailing after them.

"Sam's got a major head injury that's caused a subdural hematoma," he said briskly. "We're going to need to operate immediately to relieve the pressure the clot is causing on his brain."

Numbly, Dean nodded and watched as the doctor made a quick gesture to someone through the glass of the door. The person waved back and headed back into the bowels of the hospital.

"They're going to get him prepped, and then I'll go perform the surgery." As he spoke, he was pulling on gloves, eying the blood that was oozing out of Dean's hairline.

Dean flinched as the doctor reached for him, but the man ignored him, continuing to talk, swiftly and smoothly about Sam's condition even as he parted Dean's hair, searching for the wound that was still seeping blood.

"Once we get him on the table, I'll drill a small hole at the site." Dean paled, but the doctor went on calmly, "We'll insert a shunt and drain the blood that's collected there." He poked carefully at the gash he'd found. "This is going to need a couple of stitches. Sit down."

Dean opened his mouth to protest even as he hitched his butt up onto the hard, metal table. The doctor didn't pause.

"Jake, boy, will you open that drawer over there? You see the packets? Yep. Hand me that suturing kit."

"Once the shunt is in place and doing its job," the doctor ripped open the sterile packaging, "we'll observe him carefully over the next hours until he's stabilized."

The doctor was quick and efficient, sewing up Dean's head before running probing hands down the younger man's rib cage, examining the purpling bruises. He never stopped his oddly comforting, but clinical assessment of Sam's condition and prognosis.

The doctor turned to look at Jo.

"I'm sorry I wasn't here when they brought in Luke, Josie," he said gently.

She gave a small, sad laugh. "Me, too."

Dr. Jones patted Dean on the leg. "I'm going to give you a couple of prescriptions for the pain and to prevent infection. Take the whole regimen of antibiotics. You know that, right?"

Dean nodded.

"Sam…"

"It's serious, Dean. But he's young and he's strong and he's got a bunch of people pulling for him."

A knock on the door turned all their attentions.

"That's me." The doctor headed out. "I'll be back." And he was gone.

Dean slid off the table, shoving the prescriptions into his front pocket as he made his way back to the waiting room. Jo and the boys followed him back to reclaim his seat.

Jo hesitated beside him.

"I'm going to take the boys up to see Luke, OK, Dean? Will you be alright by yourself for a little while."

Dean snorted softly in wry amusement, eyes on the floor as he leaned forward, elbows on his knees. He'd spent a lot of time in hospital waiting rooms on his own.

"Yeah. I'll be fine." He looked up at her briefly before he dropped his head again. "Thanks."

"OK, then."

Dean nodded.

There was a pause that stretched out.

And Dean realized with a sudden ache that he was waiting for Jo to touch him, to tell him that everything would be OK. Anticipating that comfort like he would the reassurance of his father's hand on his shoulder or the encouragement of Sam's slow, sure smile.

But there was nothing.

Dean drew in on himself, hating that he hurt for the lack of that contact, knew that he didn't deserve it. Waited for the footsteps, walking away.

"We won't be gone long." Gently.

A kiss on the top of his bowed head.

"I promise."

xxxx

After checking on Luke, Jo had joined Dean on the hard seats, Jake and Tommy curled on either side of her, heads brushing across her lap. Michael sat next to Dean, shoulder leaning heavily, nodding off, but determined to be there.

Dr. Jones's report when the surgery was over had been encouraging, and he'd let Dean break protocol, taking the younger man back into the recovery area.

"I'm going to take the boys home. See if I can get them to sleep," Jo had said before Dean had followed the doctor. He'd nodded his agreement and understanding.

"That will be good for all of you," he said softly.

"We'll see you in the morning, OK, sweetheart?"

Somehow another day had passed.

She'd given him a hard hug and Dean had relaxed into it, thinking it was only a temporary reprieve from the blame that would come.

"OK," he said. "I'll try to check in on Luke, too."

She nodded.

"Thank you. Call me."

He'd nodded. And she was gone.

xxxx

Dean sat with Sam for as long as Dr. Jones would let him. He'd tried to insist on a longer time, but the doctor had been firm.

"I'm breaking the rules for you as it is, Dean. Be thankful for what you got."

Ultimately, Dean nodded, reluctant, running an unsteady hand over Sam's partially shorn head.

"I'll be back, kiddo," he whispered.

Ejected, Dean wandered down to the cafeteria, fumbling enough change out of his pockets for coffee before he made his way to Luke's room.

Luke lay as he had the last time Dean had seen him, still and pale in the hospital bed. The machines continued their hypnotic humming and gasping—breathing for Luke, marking his every heartbeat.

Dean moved close, drawing up a chair so that he could sit next to the supine man. He put his half-empty coffee cup on the table by the bed.

"They're safe," Dean said softly. "I wanted you to know that."

Hesitantly, Dean reached for the other man's hand—took it carefully, watching Luke's face, the almost mechanical rise and fall of his chest.

"You'd've been proud of them, Luke." His voice broke, and he cleared his throat roughly, rubbing a shaking hand over his aching eyes.

"I know you're gonna kill me when you wake up for taking them at all, but _damn_." An unsteady laugh as he shot a glance at the older man.

"They were amazing," he said in wonder. "And you shoulda heard Michael, man." He laughed again, but it was sluggish. "He was you." Dean was beginning to slur, and he trailed off.

Dean sat for a long moment, unaware of the sway in his posture, blinking heavily. He lowered his head and before he realized it, his forehead was pressed against the mattress.

"I thought you should know that," he mumbled, fingers adjusting their hold on Luke's hand.

"Sammy's downstairs," he told Luke groggily, wanting to explain why he would be leaving soon. But he didn't raise his head.

Slowly, the even in and out of Dean's breath matched Luke's The grip he had on Luke's hand slackened, and Dean crossed his arms under his head, a shaking sigh escaping as he slid into sleep.

xxxx

Jo didn't notice the broken pots or the scattered flowers on her porch as she shepherded her kids out of the car and up the front steps. It wasn't until she shut the door behind her, turning toward the boys who had preceded her in that she took in the damage.

It was the blood on the floor that stopped her.

She felt the catch of her heart, frozen in place.

"Sam fell there."

It was a whisper from Tommy.

She nodded her head.

_Sam's blood._

She squeezed her eyes shut, swallowing the emotion that rose in her chest.

She drew in a shaking breath.

"Let's get you boys some food."

Purposefully, she walked to the kitchen, ignoring the mess in the rest of the house, asking the boys what they wanted to eat, determinedly keeping her voice up-beat and positive.

They'd settled on sandwiches – fast and relatively easy – and she'd been thankful to be able to get Tommy, in particular, fed and on his way to bed so quickly. The older boys were still sitting at the kitchen table as she steered her youngest nephew out of the room.

Jo walked him upstairs (blessedly untouched) pulling new sleepwear out of the dresser before she joined the boy in the bathroom. She sat on the edge of the tub, twisting on the water as Tommy stood, surprisingly docile at her knee. Easily, she stripped him of his clothes, the exhausted boy leaning into her as she helped him out of the pajama bottoms he'd been wearing the night before, easing off the grimy t-shirt.

"Climb in, baby," she said, and he did, stiffly stepping over the edge, sitting gingerly in the hot water.

It had been a long time since she'd done anything bath-wise with Tommy beyond make sure that he'd gotten the worst of the dirt off him. Checks behind ears and instructions to go rinse the shampoo completely out his hair were usually met with long-suffering sighs and scowls.

Tonight he sat without a word as she bathed him and helped him out of the tub, scrubbing him dry. She wrapped the thick towel around him, and he rested his head tiredly on her shoulder as she hugged him close.

It was all she could do not to cry at the stillness in the young body she held against her, wanting Luke with her to pick him up, to carry him to bed, to add his strength to her own dwindling reserves, reassuring Tommy that he would be safe again.

There was a knock on the door, and Michael pushed it open, sticking his head in.

"Need some help?" he asked quietly. At her look, he bent down to Tommy.

"Ready, buddy?"

Tommy nodded, turning to his brother as Michael put his arms around the younger boy, hefting him up. Michael gave a slightly dramatic groan as he stood. Jo caught the sudden tightness on Michael's face when he straightened, and she almost protested, remembering his ribs. But he only faltered for a moment.

"You're getting too big," he said grumpily, breathlessly, and Tommy gave a tired snort even as he laid his head on his brother's shoulder.

"His clothes are on his bed."

Michael nodded and carried his brother off.

Jo straightened up in the bathroom, tossing Tommy's dirty clothes at the laundry basket behind the door, making sure there were clean towels for Michael and Jake before she joined Michael in the boys' room, finishing putting Tommy to bed. He was asleep as soon as she kissed him good-night, arms tight around the rag-monkey that his parents had given him years ago.

As she left the room, she heard Michael in the shower and turned to go downstairs to see where Jake was.

At the bottom of the staircase she saw the boy on his knees in the foyer, cleaning the floor where Sam had fallen, scrubbing away the blood that was there.

He looked up when he heard her.

"I couldn't leave this here," he said unsteadily, and she nodded, resting a hand on his head briefly before she moved past him.

"I've got something that will do a better job than that, I think," she responded softly. He nodded, sitting back on his heels.

She collected the supplies and joined him on the hardwoods, wiping away the most troubling evidence to the violence that had been visited on the family over the last 24 hours. When they were done, they sat for awhile in silence, looking at the rest of the damage they could see from their vantage point.

"Are you going to be able to sleep with it a mess like this?" he asked. The expression on his face was wry, but concerned, too.

Jo sighed.

"Probably," she admitted. "I'm exhausted."

Jake stood, reaching down a hand to help her to her feet. Together they carried the dirty cloths back to the laundry room, putting them in the sink to soak.

The kitchen had been cleaned, the dirty dishes from Dean's breakfast fixing and the sandwiches were in the dishwasher, the table wiped down and the counters uncluttered.

She smiled at Michael's and Jake's thoughtfulness.

"I'll concentrate on this clean kitchen if I start worrying about the rest of the house," she said approvingly, giving a hug. Jake nodded as he hugged her back.

"Come on," she said. "Let's get you in bed."

xxxx


	10. Chapter 10

Frail, chapter 10 

xxxx

Dean wasn't sure how long he slept, but the sky outside the window in Luke's room was starting to lighten when he jerked awake. It took him a minute to get his bearings.

He blinked blearily at Luke. "Mornin'," he said to the unconscious man.

Dean wiped a hand over his mouth, and then rubbed ineffectually at the wet spot on the sheets where he'd drooled.

"Sorry, man," he muttered. He moved Luke's arm over so it wouldn't touch the dampness.

He hesitated for a minute.

"I'm gonna go check on Sam," he said. He patted Luke awkwardly on the arm. "See you later."

xxxx

Jo left the house before sunrise, trundling Jake—rumple-headed, but determined—into the car. She'd woken Michael briefly to let him know where they were going, and he'd mumbled some sort of acknowledgement before rolling back over, throwing a careless arm over Tommy who had joined his older brother some time during the night.

They'd stopped for breakfast tacos on the way to the hospital, buying a couple dozen, intending to feed not only Dean, but whatever nurses or doctors were on duty at that early hour.

After checking on Luke, Jo left Jake with his uncle before she ventured down to Sam's room, knowing she'd find Dean with his younger brother.

Dean was slouched in the chair next to Sam, boots kicked off and feet propped up on his brother's bed. He was scooted way down in the chair, head resting awkwardly on the low back. One hand rested on Sam's, the other loosely held a remote that was pointed vaguely in the direction of the television mounted on the wall. The set was muted, talking morning heads animated, news crawl making its slow way across the bottom of the screen. Dean turned his head toward the door as she walked in and sat up stiffly.

"How's he doing?" She put the depleted bag of tacos on the rolling tray at the end of the bed and walked to the far side, leaning down to kiss Sam on the cheek. She brushed a gentle hand over his head. "Hey, baby," she whispered.

"OK, I guess," Dean said, voice rough with disuse. "The nurse said he's stable and that's good."

"Have they said when he should wake up?"

Dean shook his head. "She said something about keeping him unconscious for awhile." He looked uncertainly at the plastic bags attached to the lines that were, in turn, attached to Sam. "They're sedating him."

Jo nodded her understanding and put a light hand on Sam's arm. Her eyes followed her hand, and she gave a slight gasp, catching sight of the enflamed flesh around his wrists, deep bruises, jagged tears of skin—cleaned, but not bandaged. Jo felt her heart start to hammer erratically in her chest, remembering matching marks around Tommy's slender wrists. And while Tommy's bruises had been bad enough, the damage to Sam's hands shocked her, along with the realization that the violence evidenced here was in direct proportion to Sam's struggle to free himself, to save Tommy.

She took a shuddering breath, forcing her eyes over to Dean.

Dean's face was down, eyes on the arm next to him, seeing wounds that mirrored the ones Jo saw, and when his eyes raised to hers, she saw her own horror reflected there briefly before he dropped his gaze.

He reached out an unsteady finger to whisper over the mangled skin at Sam's wrist, and Jo watched Dean's pale face still as he wrestled for control over the emotions she knew boiled just under the surface.

She took the moment to study him, noting the dark circles standing out under his eyes, light smudges of blood from the gash on his head still plain under his hair and on his cheeks. Jo thought he might have tried to get the worst of it off, but he hadn't done a particularly good job of it—there was a darker trace of red at one temple and a shadow of one on his neck. He didn't look very steady.

"There are tacos in the bag, if you're hungry, sweetie," she said.

Dean seemed to shake himself and took careful steps toward the table at the end of Sam's bed. He rooted through the crumpled bag, pulling out a couple of tacos. She didn't notice him sway, but she saw one hand come out to steady himself on the bed as he made his way back to his chair, dropping into it.

Unwrapping the tin foil around the first of the tacos, Dean tore into the still-warm food.

"Thanks," he said around a mouthful.

She gave him a tired smile.

"Did you get any sleep last night?" she asked.

Dean swallowed a large bite and nodded.

"They wouldn't let me stay with Sammy, so I sat with Luke for awhile. I fell asleep." He sent her a crooked smile. "I think I may have drooled on him."

In spite of herself, Jo laughed.

"Have you seen him this morning?" Dean asked.

Jo nodded. "I was just up there. Jake's sitting with him now," she said softly, pouring Dean some water out of the pitcher at Sam's bedside. "Still no change."

Dean took the proffered cup, gulping it down quickly, suddenly parched. His deep belch startled both of them and he smiled sheepishly at her, holding the cup out to her. Jo refilled it and put it back in his hand. With a smile of thanks, he drank deeply again.

"What does that mean?" he asked when he was finished, balancing the cup on the arm of his chair.

She took the cup and moved it to a steadier place on the rolling table. She lifted a shoulder, wearily, not meeting his eyes. "That he isn't getting worse?"

"That's good, isn't it?" he said hesitantly. Hopeful.

Her eyes went to Sam. "I really don't know." She was so tired and this all felt so hard.

Silence filled the room, and Jo watched as Dean shifted uncomfortably in the chair. She could see the pain clearly on his drawn face and in his restless posture.

"Have you gotten your prescriptions filled?"

Dean sighed. "No."

"Here. Give them to me."

Obediently, Dean pulled them out of his pocket and handed them over.

"I'm going to go get these for you, and then I want you to go home," she said.

He was already shaking his head.

"I can't leave him alone," he said.

"You won't be, Dean," she reminded him, gently. "I'll be here."

He opened his mouth to protest, but Jo was able to anticipate his objections—the main one being that he should be the one there when Sam regained consciousness.

"I know that I'm not you, sweetheart, but Sam's not going to be awake for awhile if they're keeping him sedated. If you go home now, take a shower, change clothes, maybe sleep in a bed, you'll be better prepared to be here for him when he does wake up."

In spite of the sleep he'd gotten the night before, it took Dean some time to think it through, and his eyes strayed to Sam's still form as he considered.

Slowly, he nodded.

"OK," he finally agreed.

"That's my boy," she approved.

xxxx

They managed to work out a schedule of sorts over the next couple of days, with Jo and Dean and the boys rotating through sitting with either Luke or Sam. Dean spent the majority of his time with Sam, but was willing to let others give him the occasional break or just hang out to pass the time.

Dean picked up the book Tommy had left on the bedside table, tempted to start reading again. But he knew he'd be in trouble with the younger boy if he did. Tommy had brought _White Fang_ to be read to Sam, and Jo had decided on _The Sackett Brothers_ for Luke.

Tommy had insisted that a strict reading schedule be followed—nobody was to read ahead—and Dean was impatient with the timing. But he also didn't want to risk making Tommy mad. Generally, the kid was unflappable, but the last couple of days he'd been understandably emotional and uncharacteristically volatile. While another time Dean might have read ahead just to rile him, he couldn't bring himself to do it right now.

Dean put the book down and settled back in the chair, turning his head toward his little brother, startled to see Sam stir restlessly. Dr. Jones had said they'd started easing off the medication that was keeping Sam unconscious, but it still caught Dean off-guard to see his previously motionless brother move suddenly.

Dean stood quickly, leaning over the bed.

Eyelids twitched.

"Sammy?"

Sam's head turned minutely in the direction of his brother's voice, the hand nearest Dean shifting. Dean took it in his own, grinning at the faint pressure against his fingers. He squeezed gently back.

"Hey, kiddo."

The hand that wasn't holding Sam's reached for the call button, pressing insistently.

"C'mon, Sammy, open your eyes for me."

The hand under Dean's moved again, and the lashes against Sam's cheeks fluttered, eyes coming slowly to half-mast.

Dean was vaguely aware of someone coming through the door behind him, but all his attention was on Sam.

Sam's eyes wandered dazedly around the room, finally making their way to the man at his side, sharpening suddenly at the sight of Dean.

"It's about time," Dean said gruffly, trying to cover the relief that was making him feel lightheaded.

Sam watched him, face confused. Dean was about to say something when his little brother spoke.

"Dude, are you holding my hand?" Sam rasped.

The sound that escaped Dean might have been a laugh or could have been a sob, and he bent over, resting his forehead briefly on Sam's chest before he straightened, pulling his hand out of his brother's.

"You started it, Samantha."

"I was unconscious," Sam returned unsteadily before his eyelids drooped again. "So whatever you need to tell yourself. Deanetta."

Dean snorted. He'd always been smug that "Dean" didn't convert into a feminine form as easily as "Sam" did. Everything Sam had come up with over the years had been a stretch.

"Dude, that's not even a name."

"Deanielle?" Sam tried groggily.

The nurse who had answered the summons was smiling as she moved around Sam's bed. She picked up one of his abused wrists with gentle fingers, checking his pulse.

"It's good to see you awake, Mr. Winchester," she said.

"Thanks," Sam said. His eyes opened to blink at the woman and then shifted back to his brother, uncertain now.

"You've been out a couple of days, Sammy," Dean said softly. "All that banging into walls got you a subdural hematoma, kiddo. Dr. Jones had to operate."

Sam paled, swallowing.

Dean reached out, taking Sam's hand again, holding it firmly.

"You're going to be OK. The doctor took good care of you." Dean looked at the nurse.  
"Right, Jenny?"

"Right," she agreed brightly, checking Sam's vitals, adjusting one of the drips. "I've paged Dr. Jones to let him know you're awake, and I'm sure he'll be by soon to see this for himself." She straightened the thin blanket over the bed with an expert flick of her wrist.

"But don't you feel like you need to stay awake for him, Sam, you hear me?" She arched an eyebrow at Dean, and he nodded his understanding. It was clear that Sam was already drifting even as he was trying to stay awake.

"Dean?" Sam's voice was weak, and Dean felt his brother's fingers tighten slightly around his hand again.

"Yeah, buddy?"

"Are the boys OK?"

"They're fine, Sammy."

"Luke?"

"Still unconscious."

There was a longer pause, and Dean thought that maybe Sam had fallen back asleep.

"Potter?"

Dean barely heard Sam's hoarse whisper.

He sighed, shifting his grip on Sam's hand.

"Alive and in custody."

"Does he remember?"

"No."

Sam's head moved in a small nod.

"'K."

"You ready to go back to sleep?" Dean asked gently.

"Mm-hm," Sam breathed.

"Then do it, brat," Dean ordered softly settling back into his chair. "I'll be here."

xxxx

Luke had returned to consciousness a couple of days later and the drop in tension had been felt around the hospital—family, friends, doctors and nurses had heaved sighs of relief and breathed prayers of thanks and gotten back to the business of their lives. Still there, still present, but easing away.

Crisis mode over for the most part—her husband healing, Sam improving daily, her children slowly finding their ways back to the boys they'd been just days before—Jo found herself with the time and energy to begin the process of working through the events of the last week or so.

And the anger, the rage she felt—pressed down, unacknowledged until now—threatened to consume her.

In her mind she knew that she wasn't being fair or rational. In her mind, she knew that it wasn't Dean's fault, hadn't really even been his choice to put Michael and Jacob in danger. She realized that without the older boys, Tommy would quite probably have been lost. That Sam, too, would not have survived if her nephews had not been there.

But even as her mind whispered these truths to her, her heart refused to listen, wouldn't hear. Would only clutch the fury closer, unwilling to let go.

Jo was pretty sure it wouldn't be a comfort to Dean, but he wasn't alone on her list. God Himself was there, backed into a corner with Dean as Jo held out a warning hand to both of them.

_Don't even._

Dean wasn't unaware of her displeasure and had, since the day after Luke had woken up, assiduously avoided her, sticking to corners, edging along walls as he exited any room she entered, her resentment radiating around her, her eyes refusing to look at him or even acknowledge his presence.

Face tight, gaze cast to the floor, Dean accepted her censure, didn't protest it. Removed himself, let himself be isolated. Uncomplaining.

Jo knew he was in pain. But she just didn't care.

_See_, she thought. _See_. Although what she thought he was supposed to be seeing she couldn't have said.

"Come on, Dean."

It was Michael, outside of Luke's room, voice understanding, cajoling.

Jo could hear the low murmur of Dean's reply, but not the words.

"Luke's been asking about you, OK?" He was wheedling, using all the tools in his arsenal to lure Dean into the room. "He almost died, you know?" It had become almost a joke with the family, using Luke's brush with death as a way to manipulate each other into doing things. _I think you should do the dishes. Luke almost died, you know._

"Are you going to deny him this almost last request?"

Jo heard a snort and the mumble of something decidedly disparaging.

Michael laughed.

"C'mon, man." His voice dropped, serious now, with an ache that Jo didn't want to acknowledge. "Just give her time, Dean. She…"

Dean entered the room abruptly, clearly avoiding whatever Michael was going to say. He stopped when he saw Jo. She saw his breath catch, and he took half a step back.

"Dean."

Luke's breathless rumble stopped him again, and Dean smiled at the man, eyes flicking to Jo before he moved toward the bed.

"Hey," he said. "So, I hear you almost died."

Luke wheezed out a laugh. "That's what they keep telling me." He lifted a hand and Dean took it. Jo saw the muscle in Dean's jaw jump as he shook Luke's hand, holding on a little longer than he would have normally. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but closed it again, swallowing hard.

"How's Sam?" Luke asked.

Dean cleared his throat, swallowed again.

"Better," he said roughly. He cleared his throat a second time. "Kicked me out while Nurse John gives him a sponge bath."

Luke laughed, and Dean smiled in response.

"Can't say I blame him for that." Luke's eyes strayed to Jo. "You want to hang out while you wait?"

"I'm going to grab something to eat."

Jo said it as lightly as she could, but still Luke frowned. Dean's head dropped, and he started to back away from the bed.

"I'll go. I…"

"No. Stay Dean," she said coolly. "I know that Luke wants to talk to you." And with that she left the room.

xxxx

The silence that descended was heavy in the wake of Jo's departure, and Luke felt a sharp stab of pain in his chest at the brief look of devastation on Dean's face before the familiar mask slipped into place.

"I'm sorry," Dean said.

"You didn't do anything wrong, Dean."

There was a flash of something in Dean's eyes before he shook his head.

"Jo wouldn't agree," he said softly. "I don't know if I agree," he added, eyes going to Michael before they came back to Luke.

Michael was motionless on the other side of Luke's bed, but Luke could read the confusion and hurt from his nephew.

"You didn't do anything wrong," Michael said vehemently. "You didn't have a choice." The young man looked at Luke. "He didn't, Luke. Aunt Jo doesn't…"

"Michael," Dean interrupted him. "Don't…"

"I'm not even sure what happened." Luke broke into what looked like might become an argument. "Tell me."

"Aunt Jo hadn't even asked," Michael mumbled and Luke cut him off with a sharp, "Michael."

Somewhat chastened, the teenager subsided as Dean told Luke the story of their encounter with the demon.

It took awhile to be told with Luke asking questions and Michael occasionally inserting his own comments or some of what Tommy had told him over the last few days. It was a horrifying story, and Luke wasn't unsympathetic with Jo's reaction to the boys' participation in the battle.

Dean had pulled up a chair next to Michael so that Luke wouldn't have to keep looking from one side to the other as they'd talked.

"So, you see why she's pissed," Dean said softly at the end.

Luke was nodding thoughtfully, agreeing that he understood, when Michael broke in defensively.

"I don't. I don't see why she's pissed. We're OK; we're all OK. And we wouldn't have been if we hadn't gone." Michael's voice broke with emotion. "Tommy would be dead, Luke. Sam would be dead. Why can't she see that? Why…?"

"Sweetheart," Luke broke in gently. His eyes went from Michael's face, angry, frustrated, to Dean's, resigned, regretful.

"I think she probably does see that," Luke said carefully. "I just think that right now what she's seeing more is that she could have lost _all_ of you. Not just Tommy. And Sam. But you and Jacob." He paused. "And Dean."

Dean's shoulders hunched at this, and Luke saw the younger man's head move tightly from side to side. Denying that this was a possibility.

"Your mom had the hell scared out of her, Mikey. Me shot, Tommy taken, Sam, the rest of you boys in danger. She can't… She can't get her mind around all of it yet, and she's just stuck in being angry right now. Angry at Dean because he's convenient. Angry at God mostly, but He's not visible in the room currently for her to take things out on."

He smiled wryly at Michael and at Dean, whose head had come up for just a moment.

"Give her some time, boys, OK? Both of you." Dean's head had turned, looking to the door, wanting escape, Luke realized.

"Dean, do you hear me?" Reluctantly, Dean returned his attention to Luke. "She's not perfect," Luke said softly. "Don't let this ruin your relationship with her. Please."

Dean blinked at Luke. "I don't blame her," he said, a little stunned.

Luke looked him, considering. _Maybe you should_, he thought.

"Maybe not," he said instead. "But don't make the mistake of thinking that her blaming you is legitimate either."

Dean shifted, uncomfortable. He cleared his throat.

"Maybe I'll go see if Sam's all clean again," he said.

Luke kept his eyes steady on the younger man.

"OK," he agreed.

Dean stood. "I'll see you around."

"You better."

A tight smile. He left behind a blanket of silence.

"Luke?"

Michael's voice was small.

"Yeah?"

"Is everything going to be OK?"

Luke felt his heart constrict, and he swallowed heavily.

"I think it will be, kiddo," he said. He turned his head to Michael, pale and looking like he might cry. "We just… everybody's going to need time." He reached out tiredly, touching the boy's face gently. "We'll get there, though."

They sat in a comfortable silence for awhile, Michael leaning forward to rest his head on Luke's bed, Luke rubbing a hand slowly back and forth over the boy's back.

Luke felt his eyes start to slide closed, and he popped them open as far as he could.

"I'm going to head home," Michael finally said, sitting up and stretching.

"You don't have to," Luke mumbled, although he was a little relieved.

Michael laughed as he rose. He reached out and patted Luke's leg under the covers as he passed.

"Night," he said.

"Night," said Luke, shifting restlessly. These beds were so damn uncomfortable.

"Hey, Luke?"

"Yeah?" Luke inched his butt down the mattress, twisting to find a good spot. He raised his eyes to look at his nephew.

"I love you."

Michael said it quietly, watching seriously, but there was a hint of a self-conscious smile on his lips.

Luke blinked back the moisture that had suddenly sprung into his eyes.

He cleared his throat.

"You know I'm not dying any more, right?" he asked gruffly.

Michael smiled and then schooled his features.

"Wait. You mean nobody's told you…?"

Luke snorted.

"Come here."

Michael moved forward, and Luke raised an arm as the boy leaned into him. Luke wrapped him in an awkward hug.

"I love you, too, kiddo," he said softly, turning to kiss the cheek next to his. "And I am so proud of you."

He felt more than heard the unsteady breath that Michael drew in before he pressed his face into his uncle's shoulder.

"You hear me?" Luke asked and was rewarded with a tight nod.

"Good." He smacked a loud kiss on the top of the tousled head and pushed away.

"Now go home and let me sleep."

Michael pulled back, wiping quick hands over his face.

"See you tomorrow."

xxxx

Dean poked his head into Sam's room.

"All clean?" he asked with a smirk.

"Shut up."

Sam was curled on his side with his back to the door and his brother.

Dean moved around the bed, dragging a chair with him, so that he could sit face to face with Sam.

"I guess a bath didn't improve your disposition any."

Sam kept his eyes closed, but poked his hand far enough out from under the covers to express his displeasure with a simple gesture.

"Nice."

With Sam's eyes closed, Dean could inspect the bandage on his brother's head. They'd shaved a fairly large patch behind Sam's ear for the surgery and trimmed up around it almost to the crown. It was not a pretty sight. The white gauze that covered the wound was clean and the skin that surrounded it looked pink and, to Dean's mind, healthy.

"Where've you been?" Sam mumbled.

Dean slouched back in the chair.

"Talking to Luke and Michael."

One eye opened.

"Yeah? How are they?"

Dean shrugged. "OK."

They were quiet for a moment.

"What happened, Dean?"

Dean turned his head from the blank television he'd been staring at to his brother. Sam was watching him seriously.

"Just now?" he asked.

"No. That day. What happened when Michael went back?" Sam shifted, moving to sit up. Dean got up, easing the pillows under his brother, helping Sam get settled.

Dean sat down in his chair, kicking off his boots, tucking toes between the mattresses on Sam's bed.

"Tell me," Sam said softly.

"He exorcised the demon."

Sam blinked.

"What?"

"Michael exorcised it. I'd done this binding spell to hold the damn thing, started the ritual, but the spell didn't hold. Potter got loose in the middle of the exorcism and was beating the crap out of me when Michael showed up. The kid got a hold of Dad's journal and starting reading the exorcism."

"_How_? He doesn't know Latin." Sam hesitated. "Does he?"

Dean couldn't help the laugh at the memory of Michael's atrocious pronunciation.

"Uh, no."

"But, how…?"

"I don't know, Sam. Not for sure." He paused. "I've got a guess."

Sam raised an eyebrow at his brother.

Dean shifted, sitting forward, dropping his stockinged feet to the floor.

"I think…" He stopped. Started again. "What do you believe when you read an exorcism, Sammy? What were you thinking when you did the exorcism on Meg?"

Sam's brow wrinkled as he thought. "I don't know. I guess I'm trying to say it right. Hoping it will work. Reminding myself that it does."

Dean nodded. "It's the ritual, isn't it? We've seen it work, haven't we? Known that Dad wouldn't have written it down if it didn't. We trust the power of the words that we're speaking."

Dean looked up at Sam, saw in his brother's eyes that he grasped what Dean was saying, but still didn't really understand.

Dean looked down at his hands.

"I think… It wasn't the ritual that Michael trusted, Sam. It was the power behind it."

He hesitated for a second. "He read the words because I told him the ritual would work, but he believed it would work because he believed that God could and would defeat the demon. Not because the ritual was powerful, but because God was powerful."

Dean could see Sam digesting this, considering it.

"The Word become flesh," Sam said softly. Dean gave him a quizzical look. "We believe in the words. Michael believes in the Word that became flesh." He shrugged. "I don't know."

Dean said wryly, "The power of Christ compels us," and Sam smiled back at him.

"What do you think?" Sam asked finally.

Dean deliberately misunderstood. "About what?"

Sam scowled at him. "About God, jackass," he said impatiently.

Dean shrugged.

Sam persisted. "I asked Dad onetime," he said, "if he believed in God."

Dean just looked at him.

"He said he did. He just wasn't speaking to Him right then."

One corner of Dean's mouth lifted.

"That sounds about right," he said softly.

Sam nodded. He looked like he wanted to say more, but didn't.

After a couple of long moments, he ventured, "The demon said something about you."

Dean felt himself go cold.

"What?" He hated that he could hear the falter in his voice. He cleared his throat. "What did it say?"

Sam looked at him, face uncertain.

"What, Sammy? Tell me."

"It talked about…your purpose. It wondered if killing me, killing Tommy would turn you from your purpose." Sam's voice was strained, face tight with the memory.

"What purpose?"

"It didn't say. Just that… that your purpose involved more than me. That you have a larger job to do than protect me."

Dean stared at him. "What the hell does that mean?" he demanded.

Sam shook his head. "I have no idea."

Dean scowled at his brother.

"So I have a larger job to do than just save your ass all the time?" he asked sarcastically.

Sam laughed and shrugged.

"That's a big enough job in and of itself, huh?" he said with a grimace, and Dean's face softened at the look.

"Sammy," he started.

But his brother interrupted him.

"I don't know," Sam said with another shake of his head. "You do alright with keeping me out of trouble. Couldn't be much harder than that, right?"

xxxx

Luke looked at his wife, head down, immersed in a book, refusing, he knew, to meet his eye.

He took a deep breath.

"So, what's up with you and Dean skulking around each other?"

"Nothing," she said, seemingly unconcerned, fascinated by the words on the page in front of her.

"Josephine."

"What?" she demanded, peering at him belligerently over her glasses, daring him to push.

He watched her seriously.

"You're hurting him," he said, softly.

Jo sucked in a painful breath of her own, a small sound like a moan escaping. She stood abruptly and moved away from the bed, pacing to the window and then to a corner of the room. She crossed her arms over her chest, pressing her back against the wall, glaring at him through bright eyes.

Silent, he followed her with his eyes. He watched as she struggled.

"I don't know what to do," she suddenly cried. "I can't…" She stopped, and then said in a rush, "They could have been killed! All of them, Luke! We could have lost all three of them, don't you see that? Dean…" She stopped. Couldn't say it. Wouldn't.

"Sugar, it's not his fault."

"I know that!" She almost sobbed, desperate. "You think I don't know that? I do!"

"But…" he probed.

"But he. . . He didn't protect them, Luke." She wiped angrily at the tears on her cheeks. "I never would have thought that of him. That Dean wouldn't protect Michael and Jacob. That he would deliberately . . . He put them in danger. And I can't… I don't…"

"Josie…" Luke reached out a hand to her, but she shook her head, staying where she was.

"I know it wasn't his fault, Luke, I know that. But I can't get over the fact that if he hadn't taken the boys with him they wouldn't have been exposed to that evil, they wouldn't know…"

"Josie," Luke interrupted her gently and she trailed to a halt. "Josie, have we ever told any of our kids that evil doesn't exist, that Satan's a myth? Have we ever tried to make them believe that spiritual warfare wasn't a powerful reality?"

Jo shook her head, but her face stayed set.

Luke watched his wife closely. "Honey, I'm not saying that I don't wish that the kids hadn't had to face that danger. That Dean hadn't had to take Michael and Jake with him."

Luke saw Jo's eyes narrow at his last words.

"He didn't have to take…"

"Do you really think that he didn't think that? That he just decided to put the boys in danger?"

Her lips tightened.

"Do you know what happened when they got there?" he asked.

Jo's chin came up, and she looked at him defiantly.

"Ultimately, Michael's the one who exorcised the demon," he said quietly.

Breath catching, Jo paled.

"They'd gotten Sam and Tommy to safety and left Dean to take care of the demon. Sam was frantic about Dean on his own, so Michael went back."

Jo's face crumpled slightly, and she brought her hand to her mouth.

"When he got there, the demon had gotten lose of whatever spell Dean had used to contain it while he was exorcising it. It attacked both of them, but when it focused its attention on Dean, Michael picked up the ritual that Dean had written out and read it. Dean said that Michael was the one who banished it."

They looked at each other from the space between them.

"I get that you're angry, Josie. I understand that. But if Dean hadn't taken Michael with him, he'd be dead. If Jake hadn't been there to get Tommy and Sam to safety, they'd have still been in the house. We would have lost all three of them. Michael and Jacob would never have been in danger. But would it have been worth the cost? Do you think it would have been worth it to Michael and Jacob?"

He left it there. Let it hang.

She was crying, standing as far away from him as she could, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Don't punish Dean for something that wasn't his fault. Don't punish him for doing what had to be done—to save all their lives."

xxxx

Jo closed the door to the sitting room, sighing with relief that she'd managed to escape. Sam and Luke were both asleep, worn out from a day spent getting them settled in the downstairs bedroom and a judiciously administered dose of pain medication. Jo felt a small twinge of guilt at making them share a room – and Luke's disgruntled, slightly offended expression had been hard to ignore – but there was no way she'd survive having one patient on each floor. If she was going to be primary nursemaid ("help" provided by the four other males in the house aside) to two invalids, she was going to keep them on one floor. And in this house that meant one room.

After the painful conversation with Luke about Dean, Jo had waited for an opportunity to talk to Dean, to try and smooth over her behavior over the past few days, but there hadn't been a chance, a sudden flurry of preparation for bringing Luke and Sam home and little time alone with him. The times they had been in the same room, she'd tried to show him her change of heart, offering hesitant smiles and softer words. But he'd been leery, giving her cautious looks and mumbling responses before slinking away.

Now that they were home, though, she knew she'd be able to make it right.

Jo sank onto the small settee, picking up the book she'd put down over a week ago and rolled her head around on her neck. Deliberately ignoring the chattering voice in her head that started running through the list of things she had to do, Jo found her place. She'd give herself 30 minutes.

A motion out the front window caught her attention, and she looked up. Through the curtains, she could see Dean on the porch swing, arms stretched out along the back of the wooden seat, the rocking motion of his feet keeping the swing gliding gently back and forth.

His head was turned slightly to the right, watching something, she thought, but not rising, just sitting. Swinging.

"Hey."

Without thought she'd gotten up and eased out the front door, soft steps taking her to his side.

She'd startled him, and he stood abruptly, the swing tilting crazily as he pushed off.

"Hey," he said, watching her carefully.

"Can we talk?"

She felt her heart tighten at the way his face closed up, but he nodded stiffly.

"Sure."

She sat gingerly in the swing, Dean steadying it for her, but staying standing. Jo looked hesitantly up at him. She put a hand on the seat next to her.

"Join me?"

Expression giving nothing away, Dean sat.

They were silent for a moment, Jo turning her head to gaze out to middle distance while she gathered her thoughts. Dean swallowed, expectant, but waiting.

"Dean, I'm sorry," she started quietly. She paused, trying to figure out where to go from there.

"It's OK," he said, voice taut. "I understand."

Jo turned to him.

"As soon as Sam can travel, we'll go." He was staring almost fiercely at the horizon. "Don't worry. We won't…"

Jo felt her mouth fall open.

"Dean…" Horrified, Jo reached out, grabbing at his hand. "Honey…"

His hand lay limp in hers, the rest of his body held rigid, still not meeting her eyes.

"I understand," he said again, tonelessly. "I'd go now, but Sam…"

"Dean!" She said it loudly, sharply, breaking through his reassurances.

Finally he looked at her, eyes dull. "It's OK…"

"Listen to me, Dean. Listen," she said it urgently, tears in her voice and in her eyes. "I don't want you to leave. I'm not asking you to leave."

How could she not have anticipated this reaction?

"Do you hear me?"

He blinked at her, almost uncomprehending. "But…" his voice was hoarse. "You've been so mad. I thought…" He looked at her, uncertain. "I would understand…"

"No." She said it as firmly as she could with the ache in her throat. "What happened wasn't your fault, Dean, and I'm sorry, so sorry for how I've been acting since…"

Dean looked away. "It's OK."

"No," she repeated. "It isn't OK; it wasn't OK." She wanted to make sure he heard her. "Look at me."

He turned his head to her, and she was stunned by the look on his face. The careful mask of indifference and understanding he'd been wearing was gone, and what was left exposed stole her breath.

"We brought this on you," he faltered.

"You didn't bring this, Dean. You didn't."

Jo was hit with the stunning revelation that her anger—even wrapped in cold silence—had been read unerringly by Dean, confirming his own belief that somehow he was responsible for everything that had happened. Her selfishness in lashing out at Dean, blaming him when she knew it wasn't his fault, had made him believe the awful lie.

_I did this_, she thought numbly.

"I was wrong to have blamed you, Dean."

He paled, eyes dropping. "You never said…"

"I may have never said it out loud, but I made sure you knew I was angry, didn't I?" She asked it ruefully, squeezing his hand. "I was more scared than I'd ever been in my life and I handled it poorly, Dean. I struck out at you because you were the closest person at hand, and I am so ashamed of myself." She ended on a whisper.

There was no sound from Dean, but the hand in hers tightened. She looked up and he was shaking his head.

"I…"

"Will you forgive me?"

Again there was no response, but she knew it wasn't because he was refusing her. It was because he couldn't bring himself to see that she'd been wrong.

"If we hadn't been here…" he started.

She reached out and touched his face. "Sweetheart, don't you know that there's evil everywhere in this world? You didn't bring this on us – you saved us from it."

He ducked out from under her touch.

"I dreamed…"

"You dreamed about the demon that killed your mother coming here. But it didn't. It wasn't that particular evil, was it?"

Dean shook his head, "No, but…"

"Did you know that God uses dreams to speak to us sometimes?" she asked, interrupting him. "Maybe not with visions like Sam has or premonitions, but I believe there are times He moves us, prompts us, through dreams."

He frowned at her.

"Dean, if you and Sam hadn't come, Tommy would have been all alone with that man." Her voice broke and Dean paled. "Sam wouldn't have been there to protect him. You wouldn't have been here to know what was happening, to go after him, to save them." She paused. "To save me."

Jo bent her head, clasping her hands tightly in her lap. Dean was quiet, watching her with wide eyes.

"If Tommy had been…" she stopped, wiping her hand over her eyes, trying to collect herself. "If he'd been killed, Dean," she went on in whisper. "I don't know if I would have survived that."

"I believe that God never gives us more than we can bear, and He knew that losing Tommy would have been more than I could have handled." She looked up at Dean.

"And so He sent me you."

Dean swallowed hard, tears leaking out of his eyes as he shook his head jerkily in denial.

"He did, Dean. He sent us you and Sam. That dream. That horrible nightmare that had you running to our rescue." She laughed in wonder. "It might not have been the rescue any of us had considered, but still. It was a rescue, sweetheart. It was."

Dean was stunned into silence, unable to come up with a suitable reply or words at all. Jo reached out and took his hand in hers again, holding it tightly.

"I'm so grateful," she said softly. "And I'm sorry I haven't been able to express that to you."

She sniffed and ran a hand under her nose.

"All I've been able to see, to think about, was how angry I was that the boys had been exposed to that danger. All of them. Not just Tommy hurt by the demon, but Michael and Jacob walking into that kind of risk. I couldn't see past the fear, and because I don't like being afraid, I guess I decided that anger would be a better option."

She stopped.

"I don't like being scared either," Dean said softly with a quirk of his lips. Jo laughed unsteadily as she looked at him.

"Do you forgive me?" she asked.

Dean frowned, still not liking the question, but slowly he nodded.

"Thank you," she said. She turned in the swing, reaching out to pull him into a hug. "I love you," she said into his ear.

Dean hesitated slightly, arms coming more securely around her. "I love you, too," he whispered tightly.

If she didn't laugh, she'd sob, so Jo laughed unsteadily, pulling away and putting a hand to his cheek. Tears tracked down her cheeks as she smiled at him.

"And thank you for my boys. All five of them. I might have lost all of you," she said unsteadily.

Dean's eyes went down, and he shifted, turning back to look out across the field. Jo let him ease away, reaching out to skim a hand over the back of his head, before she turned, too.

His arm came around her and they sat in silence, just swinging.

xxxx

When the final bandage came off, there was no longer any way for Sam to fool himself into thinking he wouldn't have to cut his hair.

_Practically bald on one side is no way to go through life, son,_ had been Luke's amused comment.

So Sam had resigned himself to the inevitable, much to the glee of his older brother and Luke.

Sitting on a chair out in the backyard, Sam bent his head in response to Jo's gentle fingers tilting his head forward. She ran her fingers through his hair one last time, smoothing and soothing.

"Ready, sweetie?" she asked.

Sam nodded in resignation, muscles easing under Jo's touch, the buzz of the clippers bringing back odd memories.

When he and Dean had been really young, their father had been haphazard about haircuts. There had been times, early on, when they'd all grown shaggy, finances and jobs keeping John from thinking about or prioritizing personal grooming for their small family. Sam's hair had always grown faster than Dean's, so it had usually been the younger boy's out-of-control mop that elicited comments from strangers or managed to startle John into dragging them both to a barber shop.

Sam could still see the look of bemusement on John's face when he would come out of whatever preoccupation had consumed his attention for weeks at a time and notice the hair falling past Sam's ears and over his eyes. It was the same look Dad often had when he seemed to realize suddenly that Dean's wrists were sticking out inches past the cuffs on his shirts. It was a vague, _when the hell did that happen,_ kind of expression that had grated on Sam's nerves as a teen and now just made him a sad. For all of them.

When Sam had been close to 10, John had found a pair of old electric clippers at a flea market he'd been prowling for silver or iron or whatever else he could find that might be useful and cheap. The clippers hadn't worked well initially, but after a couple of bumpy haircuts with skinned heads and tears from both boys, John had finally managed to get the little appliance running smoothly.

There'd been regular—usually monthly—haircuts after that, John keeping the boys, if not himself, in flat-top buzzes for no other reason than convenience.

And looking back, Sam had to admit that those early hair cuts by his father were mostly fondly remembered.

Dad's big, calloused hand on his head, the hum of the clippers, Dean watching with a critical eye, his turn next, pointing out places Dad had missed. John had been swift and efficient about his work, lingering only for a moment, gentle palm rubbing over each boy's head, brushing off cut hair.

Sometimes there'd been a reassuring pat or even a fleeting kiss on the top of his head as he moved Sam off the chair, pulling Dean into place. And right now, remembering his father's touch, warm and strong, brought an ache to Sam's throat that took him aback.

The later cuts had gotten brutal—Sam rebelling one of the only ways he could figure out, fighting tooth and nail against his father's militaristic hair-styling requirements. Every month, every six weeks, every two months (he could see now that his father had let the time stretch out between inevitable battles), it had been all out war until Dean had stepped in, taken over the responsibility, letting Sam talk him into minutely larger gradations on the clippers each time before he ran them firmly, if oddly apologetically, over his younger brother's head.

Sam had spent most of those sessions complaining about Dad, Dean moving the younger boy's head this way and that, "mmm-hmming" occasionally, letting Sam vent. Sam had always known when he'd gone too far, though – he had several small scars on his ears from nicks Dean had given him.

"Oops," Dean would apologize blandly when Sam yelped in protest.

This cut was shaping into a replay of the earlier memories, with Dean standing nearby, a satisfied smirk on his face. Luke had made Michael carry out a chair for him and he sat, arms folded, watching with approval.

Michael said he was there for moral support, although he rejected Dean's suggestion that he cut his own hair to demonstrate his solidarity with Sam.

"I don't think so," he'd said.

When it was over, Sam ran an exploratory hand over his head. He hadn't had his hair this short since he'd left home. Dean's eyes, when they met his, were surprisingly understanding.

"How's it feel?"

"Weird, man."

Dean shook his head. "Yeah, well. It looks weird, too." He cocked his head on one side, studying Sam. "Dude, when did your head get so big?"

Dean looked at Jo.

"You'd think it would look smaller without that mess on top, wouldn't you?"

Dean was grinning and he reached out to run his own hand over Sam's head. Sam jerked away.

Jake was matching Dean smirk for smirk. "Look at the size of that boy's head!" he exclaimed, making a poor attempt at a Scottish accent.

Sam's eyes narrowed.

"It's a huge noggin," Michael agreed with a lilt of his own. Sam glared at him. _Traitor_.

"I don't think it looks that big," Tommy said, confused, trying to reassure.

"That's a virtual planetoid," Dean said.

Sam stood, shaking off hair and the towel Jo had draped over his shoulders. He caught it before it hit the ground and handed it to Jo, who was biting her lip, not meeting Sam's stony gaze.

Jaw tight, Sam stalked toward the house, flinging open the screen door.

"It's like sputnik," Luke said. "Spherical, but quite pointy at parts!"

Made reckless by the emotional trauma of his haircut and the taunting by the family, Sam flipped them all off before the door crashed behind him.

He heard Jo's gasp of surprised laughter, and Luke shouted after him, "I won't tolerate those kinds of obscene gestures in my house, young man!"

Sam had just reached for the door into the kitchen, when he heard Luke add, voice pitched loud enough for Sam to hear, "I guess he'll be crying himself to sleep tonight, on his huge pillow."

The gales of laughter that followed were cut off by the slamming of the door.

xxxx

They'd stayed another week. Long enough to hear the doctor's pronouncement that Luke was fit for duty, long enough to research their next job, long enough to feel steady leaving.

"Head," Dean barked from where he stood by the driver's side of the Impala. "Move!"

Sam gritted his teeth against the smothered giggles around him and turned a baleful stare on his brother. He was standing on the bottom step of the front porch, giving Jo her hug.

"Yeah," he said witheringly, "that's not already old." But he'd moved toward the car, opening his door.

Dean grinned.

"That's never gonna get old, Sammy," he assured his little brother.

With a huff, Sam slammed into the car, the door crashing behind him.

Dean sent a thumbs-up to the family standing on the steps.

"Be nice," Jo said reprovingly, and Dean gave her best, wide-eyed who me? expression.

"I mean it," she said. And he grinned again.

"Yeah, yeah," he agreed.

Jo approached the passenger side of the car and bent down to give Sam a last kiss through the window.

"You tell me if he doesn't behave, Sam," she said

Now it was Sam's turn to smirk. "I will," he told her. He looked at his brother. Ha!

"You always were a tattle-tale," Dean grumped, turning the key in the ignition.

"Be careful, y'all, you hear me?"

She was serious now, fixing them both with steady eyes.

"Yes, ma'am," they said.

"Call us."

"We will," they promised.

"We love you," she said, stepping back. "Don't forget that."

They smiled, peering out at her through the window.

"We love you, too," Sam said for them both. "We'll call."

And with a last wave, Dean turned the car, and drove away.

xxxx

_Frail BettySoo, Let Me Love You_

_You want me to be brave, but I don't know how to summon that kind of courage To do what you say is good for me will take more than I know I can do And I don't know why you ask so much of me Of anyone in my life, you know how I fail But you put this in my hand, a promise I should keep And I don't want to carry something heavy_

_You should know that it's not just these hands that fail but this heart just gets so weak And I'm tryin' to show that I want to give you more, but I don't think I can do it alone_

_And I don't understand when you say I don't have to be all that strong to make it Cuz the things you ask of me are hard and costly and seem to take more than I have to give_

_And you should know that it's not just these hands that fail but my heart just gets so weak And I'm tryin' to show that I want to give you more, but I don't think I can do it alone_

_And you are here, holding my hand And you say, my dear, you do not understand I never meant for you to do this on your own You say, my dear, I'll take you there, and I will bring you home_

xxxx

The End.


End file.
